


HalfElven: the Original Quest

by MrsGrizzley



Category: Elfquest, Original Work
Genre: Changing sh... stuff as she goes, Grizzyverse stuff incoming, Never sorry, Original Character running through the Canon, no I'm not sorry about it, yes she's a Mary Sue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:46:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsGrizzley/pseuds/MrsGrizzley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when a particularly shameless Mary Sue goes traipsing through a canon storyline?  Well, things start changing around her.  Small things at first that get progressively bigger as the story goes on.</p>
<p>This is the story of one particular Mary Sue of mine, and yes, I know what she is and no I'm never going to apologize for it.  I put a LOT of work into making sure that even if she IS a Mary Sue she doesn't behave in an unrealistic fashion AND all the characters around her STAY in character to the best of their abilities.  This is something of an experiment in the power of butterfly wings that keep beating, so to speak.</p>
<p>This is also a particularly OLD story of mine, begun sometime during the Autumn of 2003 and is still unfinished.  But I still hope to finish it.  I'm close.  So very close.  At least for the Original Quest phase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Book One Part One

The forest wavered in the flickering torchlight. Humans walked through them carrying fire and the trees were afraid. Hidden among the trees, eyes watched the humans, and prepared to change the events that were-supposed-to-be. From the forest cover wolves emerged, carrying child-sized non-humans. Humans called them Demons, they called themselves Wolfriders, and thought they were alone of their race on this world that was not yet named Abode.   
  
Chief of the Wolfriders was a flaxen-haired youth called Cutter. He was the eleventh Chief to lead them, and he would one day be accounted the greatest, but not yet. Eyes even the preternaturally aware Wolfriders couldn't see watched them from her hiding place, as she waited, and prepared herself to intervene.   
  
She had already decided the form she would take. Like her mother, the watcher had the ability to alter her form to suit her needs, and though she could appear as fully elven as the Wolfriders, she chose not to. She carried two legacies in her blood, and she would honor both of them. That, and it felt plain weird without the extra digit on each hand.   
  
On this world of two moons only humans had five digits on each hand. The Elves, from who descended the Wolfriders, their tunnel-digging reluctant allies the Trolls, and the fluttering Preservers who remained undiscovered yet by these children of Timmain's choice, they all had but 4 digits on each hand. She who watched the confrontation in the forest chose to wear her natural hand, though she was not of this world.   
  
Her ears were smaller than the graceful wings of the elves, and yet larger than those of the humans, and delicately pointed as well. Her hair was red-gold as a sunset, with a streak of white flowing across each side from the part. She was taller than the tallest Wolfrider, though not by much, and also by choice. Her natural form was human-tall, though a lack of height was more easily adjusted to than missing the extra finger.   
  
"If you burn the forest, we'll all starve, your tribe and mine!" the elf-chieftain cried out. That was her cue. She prepared to step out into visibility as there was but one more line to be said.   
  
"Gotara wills a cleansing!"   
  
She stepped forward and froze the human's arm as he was about to set the land ablaze. "Gotara is a lie and a phantom. Once you were alone on this world, but no longer. Times change, and I should think humans would adjust to change better than those longer lived than they."   
  
The hatred-maddened human turned to look at her, and saw all the elven features to her form. The elf-chieftain looked at her and was confused. Madness gave the human shaman strength he didn't have, or maybe it was just the weight of what-must-be. Sanity fled his eyes as he flung the burning torch at her feet, the hungry fire greedily feeding on the ancient forest.   
  
An elven bowstring twanged and the shaman's throat sprouted feathers as the spreading flames flickered in the woman's eyes. "I suppose that not even I could stop the burning."   
  
The Wolfriders turned their companions around and began to flee at the command of their chieftain. The woman ran to catch up with them, and somehow she did. "What are you?" Cutter asked, even as several of his tribe-mates wondered the same question.   
  
She grinned. "I am HalfElven, and there will be time enough for introductions when your people are safe in the Troll-caves."   
  
\---   
The spreading fire followed them to the Holt. Trees old even to the ageless Wolfriders fell before the burning hunger. Injured, Redlance the Tracker felt their passing in his blood. He should have been able to defend them, but humans had rendered him unable to defend even himself.   
  
There was chaos, but controlled chaos as the Wolfriders snatched what valuables they could as they gathered little ones and loved ones and prepared to run to the questionable safety of the Troll-caves. Strongbow watched the strange maiden with wariness. She was too human for his liking, for all that his wolf, Briersting, found nothing objectionable to her.   
  
Cutter still didn't know what to make of the maiden who called herself HalfElven. In the history of the Wolfriders there was only one of half blood born to them, Timmorn, their first father, and the source of their wolf blood. As it happened, Cutter was watching her as Nightfall helped her lifemate out of the Tree. It was unmistakeable, the look of anguish and of longing that crossed her features, the way her hands reached out against her will. A wild hope surged up in his breast.   
  
"Half-Elven, are you a healer?"   
  
Tears glimmered in her eyes as the tribe fled through the burning forest. "No, I am not a healer, and it hurts. When I was born every other female of my line had the healing gifts, to a greater or lesser degree. We did not need another healer, and so I am cut off from my birthright."   
  
Redlance heard her words, though he probably shouldn't have. Her voice was genuinely anguished, and he felt a sudden kinship with the strange HalfElven, if only in the experience of gifts denied.   
  
They reached the metal door to the Troll caves and Cutter rapped on it fiercely. They heard grinding gears as the portal was opened, and then they forced their way in.   
  
The Trolls were not welcoming of the wolf tribe, but they were also cowards, and so led the homeless elves into their inner sanctum. All the way to the throne of Greymung himself.   
  
HalfElven watched as the exchange fell out as-it-should-be. Strange how the simple act of taking on a new name changed her thoughts and behaviors. It would be too dangerous to alter these events more than her simple presence and human-seeming hands already would. She even managed to shackle and control her blood-born urge towards melodrama. She didn't add her own comments on the Troll-King's fate and just how he had brought it on himself. If she had shown similar self-control at that party, them maybe her Prince . . . but no, the past was the past. If her Prince had lived she would have died a mortal death long ago, and wouldn't be here now. In any case the meteor made that pidling little war moot.   
  
She forced herself to return to the present about the point the tiny tribe started down the "Tunnel of Golden Light". She felt a vague sort of dread, though not so vague as it might have been. Se knew what was on the other end of the tunnel, and she dreaded the trial. They would survive it, that was what-will-be, and even without her help. But maybe, just maybe, she can save the wolves.   


\---   
Walking beside the wolves she watched the stargazer play with the new trinket he had acquired. HalfElven already knew about magnets and the magnetic qualities of direction, but Skywise was just discovering these concepts for the first time. She smiled to herself and stepped up beside him. He was fidgety and ill-at-ease, no more so than the other Wolfriders, but perhaps for a different reason.   
  
"Do you miss the stars?" she asked quietly.   
  
He looked at her, startled for a moment. "How? . . ."   
  
She smiled. "It's ok. I understand. Did you know that they sing to us?"   
  
He blinked, attention immediately diverted from wondering how she knew his thoughts. "They . . . sing??"   
  
She nodded. "Yes. The day they were set in the sky they were taught to sing, and they sing still, though we've lost the ability to hear them. Some days I miss it more than others."   
  
Skywise swallowed carefully. "How do you know? Are you a High One?"   
  
She smiled with merriment and held up her hand. "Not with these, I'm not. Your High Ones were like you in that they have your hands. I just happen to know a bit more than you do about them at this time. You'll learn more about them as the years turn by, trust me, Skywise. You'll learn more about them then you could ever dream possible."   
  
Strongbow watched her still. He did not trust her. She was too unnerving, too human, and humans were deadly snakes to be killed while the killing was good. Humans had killed his daughter, and he could never forgive them for that.   
  
The other Wolfriders didn't say anything to their chief about the strange maiden, though she disturbed some more than others. The wolves, though, thought there was nothing at all extraordinary about her, and welcomed her among them as one of their own. Some chose to accept the judgment of their lupine companions. After all, the wolves didn't like the humans any more than they did. If the wolves accepted her then she couldn't be all bad.   



	2. Book One Part Two

The Tunnel ended as she knew it would, in betrayal and cave-in. It went against her instincts to leave so much unaltered, but so much was interrelated in this world that changing too much altered all. After all, it was one of the better constructed worlds.   
  
One thing she knew well, and that was how events depended upon each other. Like the ripples in a still pond after a single pebble breaks the surface, events radiated out from themselves and caused other events, which in turn rippled out and affected the ripples from which they came. Altering any one event inevitably changed events to follow, sometimes in ways that defied prediction, sometimes separated centuries, or even eons, in time.   
  
She tended to use the weaving metaphor more often than the ripple one. After all, it was the concept of the Weaver that had created her, and her abilities.   
  
She watched as the elfin tribe came to realize, with the help of Skywise's new talisman, just where the next part of their journey would take them. Thinking back, she hadn't expected Skywise to include her when he was braiding hair for the talisman to hang from. She hadn't expected that sort of acceptance this early, but she was honored, and chose a single strand of her white streak.   
  
Even now, though, she still felt a little apart. Time would take care of that, though, that enough she knew.   
  
Cutter declared that they would wait until sundown to see where the talisman would take them. HalfElven was grateful enough for just the chance to sit down. Keeping up with wolves was tiring. Little Dart saw her easing down and walked over.   
  
"Where did you come from? What happened to your tribe?" Several other Wolfriders heard the cubling's question and gathered around. Nothing interesting was going on, so they might as well find out something about this strange maiden who had joined them.   
  
"I don't have a tribe, not really. I come from a family, from a line of people, but to protect ourselves we scattered. There were too many of us to stay in one place safely." That was something they could understand. Wolfpacks sometimes split when they grew too large for a territory.   
  
"Why do you call yourself HalfElven?" Cutter asked. He still wanted to understand what she was.   
  
Half-Elven looked down at her hands. "Because I am just that. Half-Elven."   
  
Strongbow scowled. _If you're Elfin, why don't you Send?_   
  
She looked him directly in the eyes. _Your tendency to assume is going to get you into trouble someday._ She made herself not address him by the name she knew. That was her biggest advantage, and she was determined not to use it. "Just because I don't Send as often as you do, doesn't mean I can't. My sister was the most skilled among us. She had to be. In any case, I'm at least as good as you, probably better."   
  
Newstar was the one who found her small pack. "What's in this?"   
  
HalfElven smiled, though there was a touch of sorrow to it. "A gift I made a long time ago for someone I thought to love. I'll never see him again, but I still carry the gift with me, no matter where I go."   
  
From somewhere in the pack she pulled out a waterskin and handed it to Cutter. "It's not much, but it'll help." Strongbow's eyes narrowed in surprise. She offered supplies to support the group. It was still too early to tell, but maybe she would be a help, and not a hindrance.   
  
Eventually darkness fell and they began their trek through the alien desert. It would be Skywise who ultimately noticed that she always seemed to half a partially filled waterskin on her when one of the wolves was showing more of the strain than the others. She passed it around several times, and though no one took more than a swallow or two, it never seemed to grow less. Cutter cornered her on it when they stopped on the morning they reached the rock spire.   
  
"What are you doing?" He asked as she was offering bare handfuls of water to some of the unpaired wolves. Strongbow had seen her do this many times, and felt some of his concern melt. Perhaps she was not as human as he had thought if she gave so much concern to the well-being of the wolves. "Waterskins do not stay full on their own. You have offered around more water than you could possibly have carried. How are you doing this?"   
  
She looked up at him and some part of his soul quailed away from her gaze. In an instant he felt the sum total that was himself begin to open to her. He felt himself start to fall into the bottomless well that were her eyes, but then something stopped him. For a brief moment two lizards fought somewhere in the space between his thought and hers. She was of a line of healers and his tribe desperately needed one. She was at least his equal in will and was strong enough to withstand the pressure of his destiny. But the female won the fight. He would find his match at the end of this trial, though in the finding his trials would only have just begun.   
  
"Does it matter how I do it?" Briefly tears filled her eyes. "I cannot do anything else. Redlance and Nightfall are staying behind by their own choice, but the rest must travel on. I cannot feed everyone, else I destroy the importance of another's sacrifice. All I can do is this. Let me help."   
  
Cutter looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded briefly and turned back to leading his people across the last day, to the place he called Sorrow's End. It was only after he discovered the sticker-plants that stored their own moisture that the mysteriously ever-full waterskin went dry. And they didn't lose a single wolf on the journey.   
  
\---   
HalfElven glanced up at Cutter as he started to climb the mountainous stone wall. She watched Skywise follow him up. She sighed and stood, brushing sand off her palms and followed them up. She might as well be present for this.   
  
Skywise's startled send said it all. _Elves! Elves!! I can't believe it!!_  
  
A low chuckle colored Half-Elven's thoughts. _Surely you didn't think yourselves alone on this world?_  
  
_Of course . . ._ Cutter started, but then remembered who he was Sending to. _In any case, the wolves say that you're kin, somehow. Not like these . . ._ His thought noted the lack of wolves, of tree-houses.   
  
Half-Elven's thought grew somber. _Take care, Wolf-Chieftain, that you do not become that which you despise, or that in snatching water find yourself being snatched. I'm going back down._   
  
The decision was made to raid the sun-dwelling elven village. Half-Elven decided not to press the issue and to stay behind with the other women and the children. Cutter looked at her silently for a moment, a single question in his thoughts.   
  
_Yes, Wolf-Chief,_ she reassured him, _if this goes badly, your tribe will survive. Powers I could not use in the burning sands I will call on and your people will live._  
  
He nodded. There is only truth in the speaking of mind-to-mind. He still did not understand her, but he could trust her.   
  
So she waited. She was not expecting, though, to Feel the moment Cutter's eyes locked with Leetah's. She did not expect to Feel them Recognize, but somehow she did, and the implications frightened her. Suddenly afraid she threw her thought forward, following the single strand of that change, following it to a point years into the future, and saw a possibility. Only a possibility, still within her ability to choose or to refuse, but it was there.   
  
Somewhere around her, Dewshine argued with Clearbrook. The young wolfrider wanted to Send a message to her lovemate, and the older elf wouldn't allow it. Half-Elven's attention was only diverted to them when Clearbrook said that she didn't think she'd bear any more children. HalfElven had to intervene.   
  
"Really? Are you so certain? Whether or not life will again quicken in your still-functioning womb is a matter of your decision. Elves are not like humans, who eventually grow too old to still engender life within themselves. If you believe that you can still bear, then you can, if you do not then you cannot, it is that simple."   
  
Clearbrook looked at her, shocked and surprised. A new thought floated around her head and it would take some getting used to.   
  
Then the call rang out and the tribe gathered again in front of the aged Suntoucher, who examined each of them with his strange Empathic gift. Half-Elven prepared to hide herself behind the rest of the tribe, but it proved unnecessary, for as his touch reached her Cutter was reminded of his tribemates in the desert.   
  
HalfElven went with them back to Redlance and Nightfall. When Rayek made his comment about not believing in humans anymore she calmly tapped him on the shoulder and then showed him her hand with a slight smirk on her face.   
  
The healing started and the fell to silence. HalfElven caught herself holding her breath and trying to blink away sudden tears of envy. She knew the price Leetah had paid for the mastery of her gift, but still she wished, desperately, that she'd been born with even a small share of the Healing birthright.   
  
Back at the village she watched, silent, as the tribe met the Mother of Memory. It was too much for her when Savah spoke of hearing the humans sing, and how alike Elves were to them. Savah wondered if they would ever know why the hatred was so strong. Half-Elven had to answer.   
  
"You're right, in a way. But one day you will come to understand why that particular group of humans were so set on destroying you. Humans can teach hatred to their children just as easily as anyone else and eventually, when you only hear one side of an argument, you cease to want to think that there could be another. It's just a longer process with elves." She looked around at the Wolfriders as they stared incomprehendingly at her. "In any case, as Savah can tell you, there aren't any humans here."   
  
Cutter turned to Savah for confirmation, and upon receiving it, the howls of joy shook the roof of her hut.   
  
Much later, after a trip to the bathing pool, the celebration commenced. She could feel the questioning thought of Savah touching the edges of her mind, and so was not really surprised when Ahdri told her that Savah wished to speak.   
  
"You are different." Savah murmured, eyes watching the descendents of her children.   
  
"Yes, Mother of Memory. I am Half-Elven."   
  
She glanced at the five-fingered hand holding a goblet of liquid. "So I see. Do they know that your magic is as strong as mine?"   
  
"Stronger, Mother of Memory. All they know is that I am not a healer. Cutter knows that my waterskins do not go dry when I don't want them to. He also wonders. It could have been me."   
  
A single, delicately arched eyebrow rose up questioningly. "Hmm?"   
  
"Leetah and Cutter, it could have been me. But I chose otherwise." She bowed briefly and then turned and walked away.   
  
Half-Elven was, perhaps, the only one in either tribe who was not surprised by Rayek's challenge. She watched silently through the Trial of Hand, and of Head. It took most of her self-control from bursting into Savah's hut when the trials were arranged to let them all know that Leetah's love was not at stake. She could lifemate with whomever she pleased, Recognition did not demand her love, just the use of her womb. The Trial of Heart, though, took all her remaining self-restraint to keep from interfering when the inconstant wind pushed Rayek off the Bridge of Destiny.   
  
It was, in fact, Leetah's assertion that the powers of flight were lost to them that kept Half-Elven from leaping into the air to catch him, for all that she knew his rescue was planned in what-must-be. She had determined, even before stepping into that circle of firelight, that certain aspects of her gifts would remain unknown until later in Cutter's quest. It would be easier to prevent disturbing the ever-more-complicated web that was the Quest as-it-must-be if they didn't know she could fly, and travel instantaneously, or even be in more than one place at a time. As it was she only moved closer to Leetah as Cutter helped his rival to safety.   
  
In the end, Cutter made the meaningless crossing to the stone sun-symbol and Half-Elven watched Leetah claim once again that what had happened was more, and less, than what it really was.   
  
She placed a hand on Leetah's shoulder and spoke only for her ears. "Healing Light, as much as Nightfall, I am your friend too. If you need to ask questions, I too can answer them. Just like you, I was born of Recognition." Leetah's eyes went wide as she understood what she was told. "Someday I'll tell you why. Someday you'll need to know why. But not today."   
  
Days went by, and Cutter got thinner and thinner.   
  
HalfElven rejoiced with Redlance when his tree-shaping magic finally bloomed. He smiled when she congratulated him, stopping by just after his demonstration for Minyah the gardner. "Don't worry, HalfElven," he said in his gentle, understanding way, "maybe someday you'll wake up too."   
  
She smiled, tears gathering in spite of herself. "Maybe, Redlance, maybe, but I doubt it. I've lived more years than you have and I don't think I'll be learning any new tricks any time soon."   
  
All in all, she managed to behave herself. Unfortunately the one time she lost control of her temper it was directed at Strongbow. That unfortunate had made the mistake of Sending that Cutter should "just take her" when a group of them were talking about how thin Cutter had gotten.   
  
"Just take her." Half-Elven repeated, the barely contained fury trembling in her voice. "How very . . . human of you, Strongbow. That's what humans do and they find all sorts of ways to justify it." He looked at her suddenly, startled by the anger, the sheer rage she controlled, though barely. She switched to Sending as her voice failed her. _To just take her would make of him exactly what Leetah fears. To just take her would betray his mother's wisdom that is her legacy. He knows Leetah very well indeed. She fears for her freedom. She fears for her ability to choose. She fears that in accepting him she would lose herself. He is giving her the freedom to decide her own path, the freedom to accept what-must-be. And their children will be better for it._   
  
She was about to light into him in Lock-send, using that name she had refrained from using all those days ago, when a rumbling interrupted them all.   
  
Since she didn't have a wolf of her own, HalfElven elected to stay behind when the tribe took to their mounts to redirect the stampede. When Dewshine fell, though, she was moving as fast as Leetah. She leapt to the back of the zwoot with a single knife, trying to help Scouter kill it as Leetah picked up the unconscious Dewshine and ran.   
  
It was Dewshine's injury, though, that finally sparked the reconciliation, and the joining that was celebrated by both tribes. At the party Half-Elven quietly approached Strongbow. "I didn't get a chance, in all the confusion, but I need to apologize to you." Her words spelled out unfamiliar concepts to him. Wolves did not apologize, they didn't need to. When a wolf lost a challenge he acknowledged the loss, and the superiority of the other, but there was no apology for the challenge. He looked at her quizzically.   
  
_What is it?_ He would hear her out.   
  
She looked at her hands silently for a moment, and then purposefully sent her thought out to him. _I should not have spoken to you they way I did. I was angry and I should not let anger get the better of me like that. Let's be honest, your words infuriated me and I wanted to let you know just how horrible I found them to be._ He thought he began to understand, but sifting his way through the alien concept of apology was beginning to be difficult. _Perhaps if I explained it this way, what if, when you Recognized Moonshade, she had not accepted it. If she had resisted Recognition, fearing for her own freedom, would you have simply "taken her"?_   
  
Sudden horror flooded through Strongbow as her words produced sense within him. In truth their Recognition had been a moment of sublime joy, something neither of them wanted to resist, but he could well enough imagine, to his shame, what his reaction would have been had it not been so. HalfElven nodded. _That is why I reacted as I did. I should have been more understanding of you, and your pure acceptance of all that wolves understand. Others are not so accepting of the way things really are. The day will come when Recognition will strike a Wolfrider and it will not be joyful, nor will it lead, eventually, to an accepting mating._ With that cryptic statement, she turned and found her way to an out-of-the-way spot where she could watch the festivities.   
  
She was sitting and watching the dancing when young Dart came up to her. "Why don't you have a wolf?"   
  
She smiled at him. "I don't know. I haven't talked to them about it. I don't know if one of them would want to be my friend or not."   
  
"You mean you've never had a wolf friend?"   
  
"Well, that's hard to say. I've known quite a few wolves before, and I've had a few friends . . ." Just then there was a reptilian squeal and a rush of wings sped into the party. A green blur flew right into HalfElven's arms. A vaguely reptilian shape with wings twined itself around her arm and buried its head in her hair.   
  
"What's that?" Cutter asked, voicing the question on several minds.   
  
HalfElven smiled apologetically. "Sorry. I didn't know she'd find me here. This is Citaya." She held out her arm and the creature paused in begging comfort long enough to pose for everyone to see her clearly. She was a rich green in color, serpentine with strong hind legs she sat up on and smaller dexterous forelegs that she used much like arms with polydactyl clawed "hands". She was also longer than HalfElven's arm. Citaya went back to begging comfort and chirped questioningly. The chirp seemed to elicit the laugh that suddenly erupted from HalfElven.   
  
"What is she?" Leetah asked.   
  
"She's a dragonling. They don't live around here. She's the reason I don't have a wolf friend, I guess. I picked her up a while back. I told her to stay where I left her, but I guess she doesn't like to be somewhere I'm not."   
  
Savah nodded to some of the musicians and the festivities started back up again. "How did the little one find you?" she asked when everyone else's attention had been diverted.   
  
HalfElven sighed. "She's got a gift of her own, I guess." Citaya had finally curled up on both of her shoulders. "The fact of the matter is that she can travel more or less instantaneously, distance is not a factor."   
  
Savah nodded slowly. "That could be an interesting ability."   
  
"Yes, it could."

 


	3. Book Two Part One

The night sky glittered with shining stars like so many jewels above the sleeping elfin village. Well, mostly sleeping anyway. In the rocks above the village a single figure watched a pair of children creep out to wait for their father.   
  
Seven times the seasons have turned around. Seven years have come and gone bringing changes. From her vantage point, HalfElven looked across the village at the Bridge she silently called her own and considered those changes.   
  
It was more than just a simple alteration in costume. The Wolfriders had adapted to life in this daylight-dwelling place, some with more ease than others, but they had adapted. She, herself, had adapted, growing into an ease of interaction, a feeling that she belonged in this world, in this tribe, with this name. She smiled to herself. The Wolf-Chieftain was a leader worthy of her service and support. She already knew that she would stay here longer than she had stayed anywhere else since the day she began Traveling.   
  
Citaya, her winged friend, was currently curled up, warm and sleeping, in the cave HalfElven had set aside for her own. Darktumble was with the rest of the pack, hunting. HalfElven was still astonished about the shy female wolf. One of the two wolves whose lives HalfElven knew that she had saved, Darktumble had apparently chosen to bond with her savior.   
  
That she could wolf-bond at all was still a surprise to HalfElven. She hadn't thought that she had any wolf blood. She was reasonably certain that in all her lifetimes her mother had managed to weed out any touch of the virus, or the wolf-shape that came with it. Apparently, she hadn't. Whether or not Darktumble understood what the bond between them would change and awaken in her elfin blood was a question HalfElven still couldn't answer. Having a wolf-friend, though, would make some decisions easier, and others more difficult.   
  
It was time that she made one of those decisions. Two paths forked before her feet and she could only follow one of them. In other worlds, under other circumstances, following both might have been an option for her but here it was not. A third path branched off from one, that one she dared not follow. It would take her to a place she would have to go eventually, but she would get there too soon, and she would interrupt too much of what must be for the future to take place as it should. Her ruminations were cut short as the cublings' father returned home.   
  
Cutter, Blood of Ten Chiefs, had sired twins. HalfElven watched the loving father greet his family, heard the wolf-pack howl for their kill. Then she heard the wolf howl change and though she hadn't learned every tone and variance she already knew what this one would warn of, and rushed over using the fastest means at her disposal.   
  
When she got there, several Wolfriders had gathered already, with weapons drawn and directed towards a most miserable family. She couldn't do anything for the humans, not yet. She stepped up to Strongbow and placed one hand on his shoulder and then put her other hand in front of the drawn arrow. Purposefully she stretched her fingers out, drawing the flesh of her hand as tight as it would go. A good archer sights down the arrow and Strongbow was a good archer. She waited long enough to know that he had seen all five digits on her human hand and then pressed her palm further onto the point of the arrowhead. Strongbow was a very good archer and kept his arrowheads sharp. The skin parted and a small trickle of blood started to creep towards the rocky sand. Unwillingly Strongbow looked up from the humans and into HalfElven's eyes.   
  
Behind them Cutter arrived. Woodlock's tirade broke the spell of silence that HalfElven's pierced palm had woven. When Woodlock drew his bow, she calmly reached out and placed her other palm in front of his arrow too.   
  
"Loose them," she warned, "and you pierce my hands, too."   
  
Cutter looked at her, surprised. Her affinity with the wolves had caused them to forget why she was called HalfElven. "What are you doing? Is your other half Human?"   
  
She smiled slightly, as if in response to a private jest. "Not precisely." She glanced over at Redlance. "You still have questions, do you not?"   
  
He nodded. "Why?" he asked, "why the hatred? Why did they do what they did?"   
  
She spoke in a loud voice. "Well, Human? Tell them. Tell them your traditions. Tell them why you hunted them."   
  
The human male began his tale, his voice at first quaking, then gaining strength. By the time he finished he had almost forgotten that his life and those of his family hung on the actions of these "demons".   
  
Woodlock's anger and fury was disturbing to all of them. As the human's tale concludes Cutter locks eyes with HalfElven. She reluctantly moved her hand away from Woodlock's bow, giving him freedom to fire.   
  
"Do what you have to, my friend," Redlance tells him, "but kill the young human first! I want to see if you can."   
  
Woodlock's arrow flew true, and the child's life was spared.   
  
When Cutter gave his order, HalfElven quickly turned away. She didn't need to see the challenge. It would serve, though, as a distraction as she did something that would be considered suspect. The elf-tribe watched the archer challenge his chief, not the strangeling maiden giving a waterskin, a pouch of food, and a feed sack to the humans. Only Redlance watched her, and saw the trinket she gave to the human child.   
  
As they made their way back into the village he paused long enough to Send a question. The answer surprised him.   
  
_The boy will grow to be like me, a Traveler. The provisions are to make sure he survives. The trinket is to let me know when he's old enough to use his powers. At that point I'll let my family know and he'll be taken care of. Pardon me, I need to explain something to the archer while he'll still listen to me._   
  
Half-Elven stepped forward quickly and caught Strongbow's attention with a quick thought. He turned to face her, fury in every tense muscle. He may have lost to Cutter, but he was most definitely not cowed, which was actually a good thing. _What do you think you're doing? Humans are evil. Humans are dangerous. Are you trying to get us all killed?_   
  
She blinked. _If I wanted you dead, you would be dead._ The simple truth of her response startled Strongbow. _I'm trying to help you, to prepare you. Whether you like it or not, change has started. Cutter will lead you along a path that will become more and more unfamiliar. You will be tried and you will be tested and you will be even more necessary than you realize. You cannot afford the familiar prejudice of years gone by. Humans are capable of more alteration that you give them credit for. A human will save your life._  
  
Strongbow visibly flinched. _What??_  
  
Half-Elven held up her hand, where the parted skin was no longer actively bleeding, and the line of blood was drying. _This will scar and I will keep it. One day your arrow will pierce through a human hand, one offered freely, willingly, and even eagerly to save your life. I may even be with you when it happens._ Strongbow was trembling at her words, Sent so calmly, so simply, and so undeniably. _There's more, but I won't be with you then. Humans aren't the only ones who can be cruel for no other reason than cruelty. Humans aren't the only ones who devise new ways of tormenting others out of nothing more than boredom. Hold on to your self, hold on to the name that makes you who you are, and bury it so deep that it cannot be stolen from you, for if that one were to steal it, you would be destroyed, and I would have no choice but to dismantle this world to put you back together again._   
  
_Who are you, HalfElven?_ he asked.   
  
She looked up at him for a moment. _Would you like to know? Can you handle the vision? I lost my father, too._  
  
Then suddenly the Sending changed and Strongbow was . . . somewhere else. There were people running, and it was dark and everyone seemed to be taller than he was. He looked down at his hands and realized that they were five-fingered. A thread of thought calmed him. He was seeing through HalfElven's eyes. Weapons gleamed in assassin hands and around him/her flares of energy burst, magic she identified. The magic that was strange to Strongbow didn't frighten her as much as the nagging feeling of imminent tragedy. Then she turned a corner and saw an elven shape, human-tall, with five-fingered hands, and dark hair marked by a streak of white, fall to the ground. Strongbow felt the rawness in his/her throat as she screamed. A woman, strangely formed in human shape, also screamed as the strange man fell. The assassin suddenly burst apart from some terrible energy and the woman screamed again. Strongbow/HalfElven rushed forward, and grabbed hold of her gown. "Nonononono, no Mommy, no don't do it. Mommy, no!"   
  
Then it was over and Strongbow was back in his own body, looking at the tears glimmering in Half-Elven's eyes. _Now you know more about me than anyone else. I had only twelve turns, you would say eight-and-four, when the assassins came. That was when the family decided that our home-place could not protect us. We had a Holt that would not keep Death out so we left it. I've been traveling since then._   
  
Strongbow watched as she turned to walk away. She had to prepare for the path she had chosen to walk. _HalfElven, why did you share that with me?_   
  
_Let's say that I admire you. If ever there is anything about me, about where I come from or what I am, that you wish to know, just ask me and I will answer truthfully. I, too, will share if you ask it of me._ Then she left.   
  
\---   
Cutter spoke with Savah in her house. HalfElven crawled into her little cave to find Citaya awake and sprawled over a very alert Darktumble.   
  
_What happened?_ Citaya sent.   
  
_It started._ HalfElven responded, falling to her knees and gathering both her friends into her arms.   
  
_Humans_ Darktumble sent. Her sendings were becoming more and more clear and linguistic, and less and less sensory and wolfen. _We travel?_   
  
HalfElven sighed and buried her face in Darktumble's fur. _Do you want to?_ she asked.   
  
Citaya snorted. _I go where you go._   
  
_I wasn't talking to you, lizardling. I was talking to furball here._   
  
_Don't you care about me?_   
  
_Oh, I do, child of my friend's imagination. More than you know, but if you will take it, I have another path for you. Right now, though, I need to know if Darktumble has an opinion on the path we must follow._   
  
_Chief travels._  
  
_Yes, he will choose to travel._  
  
_Stargazer travels._   
  
_Yes, he will choose to follow._   
  
_Fate travels._   
  
HalfElven looked up into the wolf's eyes, startled. _I must. Boy-twin doesn't need me._ Just how Darktumble had connected that name to her she didn't know, and wasn't going to ask. Association with a person who possessed abilities like some of hers had given self-awareness to a rosebush. Who knew what it would do to an elf-blooded wolf?   
  
A brief memory sprang to mind of that rosebush, grown to the size of a tree like the Father Tree, and covered with blooms colored red, white, and blue scattered through the branches. HalfElven had met the tree when she was still a little child, but the event had remained with her all this time.   
  
Darktumble nodded, or at least seemed to. _This one travels._ The wolf wasn't finished yet, though. _Fate has hide-name. Chief has hide-name. Stargazer has hide-name. Pack not have hide-names. This one has hide-name? or not?_   
  
HalfElven trembled. _Do you want one?_   
  
Darktumble considered this option. _Maybe. How get?_  
  
_Look inside yourself. Be still and quiet. If you want one, it will be there._  
  
Darktumble seemed to nod again.   
  
HalfElven made her preparations quietly. After Cutter announced his decision she hung back and followed the cublings as Leetah took Skywise aside to ask him to accompany Cutter. "I'm going too." Both pairs of eyes turned to look at her. "He's not going to stop me, either. Three are stronger than two. But in the meantime, with your permission Leetah, I have a favor to ask of Suntop."   
  
Leetah nodded and Suntop's eyes grew round as she kneeled before him. "Darktumble's going with me, but Citaya can't." She lifted the green dragonling off her shoulders and offered her to the child. "Would you take care of her for me while I'm gone?" A very brief flash of envy crossed Ember's face. HalfElven made herself not think about it. Ember would have a wolf, but Suntop's magical gifts made him more compatible with Citaya.   
  
The boy nodded and held out his arms. HalfElven settled Citaya in those arms, and the dragonling, opportunist that she was, immediately wound herself around him, obviously begging comfort.   
  
"I'll warn you, she sends, and she has opinions of her own. She is unlike any wolf you've ever known or heard of."   
  
Suntop nodded.   
  
Skywise looked at her and they gathered their things to meet Cutter on the way out of town. When he got there, Cutter looked at the two of them and immediately frowned. "I told you, I'm going alone."   
  
"No, you are not." HalfElven told him. "We are going with you. Skywise wouldn't let you go off by yourself at any time, and I chose my own path. I cannot stay behind in the village."   
  
The force of their determination wore down his complaints and after a moment, the three of them set off into the outside world in search of other elves. At that time, only HalfElven knew what they would find, and she didn't yet know how she would change those events, simply by being what she was.   
  



	4. Book Two Part Two

The journey through the desert was much easier the second time. That first night HalfElven remained mostly silent, considering the changes she could make, and those which she dare not attempt.   
  
The second night, though, as they crossed the mostly barren landscape to the sound of their own breathing, Half-Elven suddenly looked up, startled. "Did you hear that?"   
  
Cutter and Skywise both turned suddenly to face her. "Hear what?" Cutter asked.   
  
She frowned, and concentrated, motioning for them to continue moving as they had pulled the zwoots to a stop. An aura of something quivering surrounded them and the sounds of their breathing, the creaking of leather and straps, the soft footfalls on sand, fell absolutely silent, even as they continued their journey. It was disturbingly eerie.   
  
Then softly, off in the distance, they heard a quiet crystalline tinkling sound. A slow smile spread across Half-Elven's face. _It's the Starsong._  
  
Skywise's face was a study to behold. Emotions flew across his face as he heard for the first time in his life the voices of his distant friends.   
  
_Let me try something._ She took a deep breath, and then gathered up in mental hands the ever-so-delicate threads of starsong, enhancing and weaving together and adding her own touch. This was what she lived for, more than nudging chance or altering cause and effect, weaving sound was a gift she gloried in.   
  
Voices, men's voices joined in the celestial chorus, and her two companions looked at her with something approaching awe. The voice of the stars spun around them in a cascade of music born, it seemed, from another world. Somehow the two Wolfriders knew, knew that HalfElven wove for them a song of her homeland, wherever that was.  
  
For several minutes they traveled in complete silence listening to HalfElven weave the song of the stars with something else. The song wound to a close, and the noises of their journey resumed, but for the rest of the night, they only Sent.   
  
\--

They arrived at the Troll caves to find the Tunnel cleared and the caverns long empty. HalfElven could feel the remnants of fear and horror and death in the very stones around them, but consciously shielded her empathic abilities from the emotion-auras. These tunnels would be haunted by their memories for generations.   
  
The destruction beyond the Troll-caves was infinitely worse than the tunnels. She'd been in such close association with the wolf chieftain and his soul's brother that their grief was a physical pain to her, but then she was already familiar with seeing the remnants of a shattered haven.   
  
She did her best to be considerate of them as they wandered through the burned out stump that used to be the Holt shaped by generations of gifted Wolfriders. Off in the distance she could feel the oily tug of the Black Pool which Suntop would one day cleanse. It was all she could do to keep her powers close, and keep that spoiled energy from draining them away from her.   
  
While she was there she made certain to locate some of the seeds that the old tree had produced from itself. Redlance had managed to gather up one in the flight, but it never hurt to have more than that on hand.   
  
She felt jumpy and on edge, she knew that any minute the attack would come, and she wasn't exactly sure which minute that would be. Some of her gifts were slower in rebuilding than others after those years caught in amnesia since deciding to Change herself for the first time.   
  
When it did happen it was only a brief whiff of scent that caught Darktumble's attention that warned her. As the smoke billowed around them, Half-Elven held her breath and furiously Sent to her wolf. _'Tumble, get 'Jumper and 'Runner the heck outta here!_   
Darktumble herded her packmates away from the smoke, as Half-Elven Sent a brief apology to Cutter and teleported away from the smoke and behind a nearby hill.   
  
Coughing and gagging she tried to catch her breath as Old Maggoty and Picknose gathered up the two elves they had caught. "I thought there were three of them a minute ago." One of the trollish voices mused, HalfElven was still only semi-conscious and couldn't identify which one, but then they faded away and she waited until the coast was clear.   
  
A scrap of an old book fluttered through her mind as the three wolves nudged her, half in confusion, half wanting comfort and the assurance that their friends were okay. "Frodo was alive, but taken by the Enemy!" She quirked a wry smile at the thought of Cutter being compared to the resilient, but long-suffering Hobbit hero.   
  
She tracked the Trolls back to their hut and tried to keep out of sight. Her one Send to Cutter and Skywise brought back fuzzy responses; obviously they had already been introduced to Dreamberry wine. It wouldn't be long now.   
  
They came crashing out of the window and it didn't take long for HalfElven to aid in the escape from their captors. She grinned just as merrily as Cutter when he laughed in relief when Skywise produced the filched pommel-key.   
  
Again, they set out to resume their journey, now carrying important information, and only HalfElven was able to hear Picknose's scream of chagrin.   
  
\---   
Sun Village slept beneath the light of the two moons, but all the Wolfriders were awake and gathered around a tiny den of rock where a pup howled and howled. It was an old ritual of theirs, and with a tiny girl-cub, it was being renewed. Ember, Chief's cub, was bonding to her first wolf-friend.   
  
Suntop and Citaya watched them joyfully. Suntop didn't know if he'd ever have a wolf-friend, but he was glad for his sister. Citaya was just happy because the cubs were happy, and she loved being around children. From her vantage point on a rock she watched Ember practically crawl into the den hole, and then embrace her new friend, naming him Choplicker as the bond was sealed.   
  
Moonshade was another matter. _Why can't she just learn that her Ways aren't the only Ways?_ Citaya furiously sent to Suntop. She knew very well that she didn't dare do anything directly to antagonize Moonshade or her silent lifemate. Just what Half-Elven saw in those two was something Citaya didn't understand, though it occurred to her that it was probably related to the way she would tense up around them, and Cutter, and Redlance, and the rest of them too.   
  
Citaya chuckled silently to herself. Would serve her right for running off like that for who knows how many years if she ended up heavy with a child herself. She hadn't shown much sympathy when a moment's pleasure landed Citaya in the same sort of fix. Luckily for her, she hadn't had to stay pregnant for that long. She'd produced an egg quickly enough, but it was still maturing in some safe place.   
  
At least HalfElven was doing well, somewhere out there, and at least she had a friend to keep her company. Citaya flew down and twined her way around both cubs and the pup. She needed some company too.   
  
\--  
The wolves were starting to feel the strain of their journey. Though she didn't complain much, HalfElven could feel Darktumble's pain as she made her way on padded feet that had been worn until they were almost bloody. HalfElven pulled her to a stop suddenly. "This is never going to do." she said as she looked around, and spotted a herd of ponies.   
  
She carefully dismounted from Darktumble and paused a moment to caress her friend's ears, which were always itching her.   
  
Cutter looked at her. "What are you doing?"   
  
"Take a look at your wolf. His pads are almost gone. The wolves can't carry us any farther." As much as he hated to admit it, Cutter could tell that she was right, but what could they ride if not wolves? They certainly couldn't walk.   
  
"Well, what do you suggest?" Skywise asked as he dismounted from his own wolf-friend.   
  
"I'm not sure, but give me a moment to try something." She carefully made her way down to the meadow where the pony herd was grazing. She wasn't sure if she could pull it off, this was something of a new sense. As she got closer she started feeling more of the patterns of the herd. She looked it over carefully and selected a good beast, female for a better connection.   
  
She eased forward, being careful to approach from the front and to not make any threatening motions. She slowly sent calming sensations to the mare as she laid a hand upon her shoulder. Then one hand grabbed hold of the mane and she hopped and rolled up onto the back of the beast, and all hell broke loose.   
  
Cutter and Skywise watched in surprised fascination as somehow HalfElven held on to that furiously jumping, kicking creature. She held onto the mane with one hand and her other hand was raised in the air as a counterbalance. Somehow she held on, and her face flushed with excitement as she learned to shift her weight just right and to hold on for dear life. All the while she sent calming thoughts, connecting her own mind with that of the pony. Eventually the creature calmed down and accepted the fact that she wasn't going to be able to get this strange being off her back.   
  
She rode the little one over to where Cutter, Skywise, and the wolves waited for her. "I found us some new transportation."   
  
"Wow, how'd you do that?" Skywise couldn't contain his curiosity.   
  
"I dunno, but I don't think you're gonna be able to just walk up to them the way I did. I think those troll-made chains might come in handy."   
  
Cutter looked at her quizzically. "Aren't you going to get them for us?"   
  
"And miss out on all the entertainment your catching them will provide? Not on your life."   
  
Later HalfElven watched, trying to contain her laughter, Cutter try to capture a couple more ponies for Skywise and himself to ride. One got killed in the process, but at least it didn't go to waste, and Nightrunner got kicked in the eye, but they ended up with a total of three ponies, including the one HalfElven had tamed herself, christened No-Humps by the wolf-chief, and were able to continue their journey.   
  
Darktumble was taking the booties they fashioned for them more philosophically than her old packleader, or Starjumper. _Paws hurt. Things make paws less hurt. Why fight?_  
  
_Have you tried explaining that to Nightrunner_?   
  
_Old one just old. Not like because not like. Not listen to this one._ Darktumble paused a moment to consider the beast that her friend was now riding. _Is that one good to ride?_   
  
HalfElven looked over at her. _I suppose so. They have their uses, and after all, wolves are sometimes a bit conspicuous._   
  
_This one wonders what it would be like to be one._  
  
HalfElven managed to keep from choking, but only with the conditioning of several hundred years of sometimes earth shattering surprises. _Really?_   
  
_Yes. Fate can change fur and body. Maybe if this one finds hide-name then this one can change too._  
  
Skywise looked over at HalfElven as she tried desperately not to choke to death as she caught whatever it was her wolf was Sending to her for what must have been the thousandth time since they escaped from the Troll's hut with a question on his face that he tried not to ask. HalfElven sighed when she finally got her breath back. Might as well get it over with.   
  
"What is it, Skywise? You've got a question that's been eating you since those Trolls, what is it?"   
  
"H-how did you get away from that dust so quickly? It just doesn't seem possible."   
  
HalfElven sighed again. "Oh, I could say I formed a tesseract, shortened the distance between two places by bending the space between them, or I could simply say that I teleported. I don't know if you'd understand either explanation, though."   
  
Cutter looked at her. "A what? You what?"   
  
"I moved instantaneously. I couldn't take you guys with me because you had to hear what the Trolls had to tell you. Trust me, it'll make sense someday."   
  
"So," Skywise asked, "it's magic, right? Like the Lodestone? I've never heard of anyone having magic like that."   
  
"And you probably won't ever again. Cutter has a gift of speed . . . ." Suddenly Half-Elven fell silent, her eyes going wide with an almost audible "bing!" "Speed," she murmured, and then fell to laughing.   
  
Both her traveling companions wanted to be let in on the secret, but she couldn't tell them. She didn't know how to tell them. She wasn't even sure how she knew it herself. In any case, the "white haired star daughter" wouldn't be born for generations.   
  
Eventually, they continued on their way westward in search of some forestland beyond the prairie.   
  
\---   
Well, they found the forest. Right now though, HalfElven was wishing desperately that it would have waited a few more weeks to show up out of nowhere. She grabbed a scrap of cloth and took a few steps to bathe it in the clean water next to where Cutter lay leaning on a tree.   
  
Stupid squirrel. Stupid, stupid, STUPID squirrel-bite. Just as she dared not prevent the bite, she dared not prevent Cutter falling into that stupid, filthy water and she dared not prevent the resulting infection and fever through the application of the water-like substance she carried in a brown bottle in her hidden "pocket".   
  
What was worse, what was infinitely, inhumanly worse was that she was going to have to let Cutter wander off in a fever-induced hallucination right into a fragging human camp and Skywise might never forgive her. She wrung the water out of the cloth with a frustrated twist. She leaned over and laid the damp rag on Cutter's forehead, for once grateful that she hadn't inherited her healing birthright. Skywise would have insisted that she Heal him if she had.   
  
Skywise, Skywise, even now he was searching for those darned whistling-leaves with Starjumper and Darktumble, leaving her and Nightrunner to look after Cutter. She liked him, dammit. Through the months they'd been traveling he'd even flirted with her a couple of times. She was flattered, but she knew her father's legacy too well to simply join with someone out of curiosity before she was ready for the consequences.   
  
For a brief moment her thoughts drifted back to the moment seven years before when she felt Cutter's Recognition with Leetah. The bond his soul had tried to create with her soul wasn't wholly prevented, just held in abeyance. It was both easier on her to be near only two subconscious minds trying to break through to her own, and harder. There were only two, instead of a half dozen or more, but being only two they fought harder for the proximity.   
  
Her thoughts were jolted back to the present by a splash beside her. Cutter was trying to cool off his head. She helped Nightrunner pull him out of the water and watched with a sinking heart the fevered dream take hold of him. Mutely she followed him as he ran through the woods and right into the circle of firelight that was Nonna and Adar's little camp.   
  
Nightrunner was more faithful than she though she tried to tell him to keep away from the humans; he ran into the camp after his friend and was burned for his loyalty. She stayed hidden in a tree and watched, with tears running down her face as Cutter was taken by the humans and Nightrunner went looking for Skywise.   
  
She knew the instant Nightrunner found him. He wasn't really out of sending distance; he just thought that he could trust her with their chief at a time like this.   
  
HalfElven couldn't even defend herself, his hatred was too strong and this was his brother. She didn't leave the tree as Skywise rode in to Rescue Cutter. It was only Cutter's silent command that she join them as he thanked the humans for their kindness that pulled her from the tree and into the home-like cave. Skywise didn't look at her as she entered with her head down in sorrowful shame.   
  
_Why?_ Cutter asked, not bothering to elaborate.   
  
_I had to. Listen to Nonna and Adar. They are the next part of your journey._   
  
\---   
Adar looked at the elfin maiden with surprise. "Another one???" he asked his mate, who also looked at the maiden.   
  
"But look at her hands." Indeed, Adar looked closely at the elfin female who hung her head in incomprehensible shame. Her hands were like his, and yet she was not human, she could never be human with eyes like hers, downcast though they were. Her ears were not so long and delicately pointed, but they were not ears like his, and they did curve into pointed tips.   
  
The girl looked up at Nonna as her eyes widened with a question she didn't know if she could ask. "Are you . . . are you the child of an honored one and one of my people?"   
  
For the first time a hint of merriment shone through the overwhelming sorrow and shame that was her face. "Almost. I am unique, even in this world where children of two peoples are bindings which should be treasured." Her voice was low, soft, and though she did not look at him, it was plain that she was hurt by the angry glare of the flaxen-haired elf's brave guardsman.   
  
But by now, Cutter's gaze had drifted to the back of the cave and he drew the questioning back to the ordained path with a wondering question about the paintings. Even while her two companion's attention was diverted to the symbols that were the life's work of the woman Nonna, HalfElven's mind wandered through the Web back to Sun Village and she silently suffered as she watched Savah's delicate and irreplaceable spirit be caught by the one spider HalfElven herself would have to face all too soon.   
  
All she could afford was a brief mental caress to her friend Citaya where she watched over the young mystic before she had to hurry her way back lest the Dark One discover that there were levels to Sending she had not imagined.   
  
Citaya was prepared for Suntop's journey, and for the accident that would take place on the wrong side of the river.   
  
During the next days, though, HalfElven did her best not to be around Skywise if she could help it. He was still angry with her and his fury was all the more painful because she dared not explain to him just why preventing that meeting would have doomed them all, without an amount of interference on her part that would have caused too many problems. It certainly didn't help that he had honestly trusted and liked her.   
  
The humans didn't understand the undercurrents of emotion that were raging around them, though they could feel them. Even humans can read body language to an extent, and every time they saw the two HalfElven was sagging with shame and Skywise was tense with fury.   
  
During one of their talks, Nonna summoned the courage to mention the conflict to Cutter. "The maiden, is she your mate?"   
  
Cutter shook her head. "My mate is far from here."   
  
"Is she your guardsman's mate then?"   
  
The thought brought an immediate chuckle. "No, she is not his mate either."   
  
"Why is she so ashamed? Why is your guardsman so angry with her?"   
  
Cutter was silent for a moment, thinking. "When I was ill, she was set to guard me. She allowed me to find you."   
  
"Is this such a terrible thing to spirits like yourself, honored one?"   
  
"We did not know humans could be kind. We have been away from the Mountain-home for many generations. Does his anger hurt you?"   
  
"I think it hurts the maiden. She is so sad."   
  
"I will speak with them." He paused, searching for a way to ask the questions that filled his mind. "How did you and your mate come to live here all alone?"   
  
As Nonna answered his question, a different sort of communing with the spirits was going on.   
  
Skywise had tried to escape up a tree, but that did no good when a very determined Adar wished to ask a special favor.   
  
At the pool later Cutter took the opportunity, after he spoke to Skywise about his plans, and had gotten dunked for the idea, to call HalfElven over. Reluctantly she approached the pool where the two of them stood waist deep in water. Skywise's immediate tenseness was apparent, and painful.   
  
Cutter looked from one and then to the other. _That's enough of this, both of you._   
  
HalfElven looked startled. Skywise glared at Cutter. _You could have been killed. How was she to know what kind of humans they were?_  
  
_What's important is that she knew. You two are not going to spend the rest of this journey with her head hung down like an omega wolf and you bristling like she's a threat to you. I had to meet these humans._  
  
_How you understand that, I don't know, but it's true._ HalfElven eased down to a sitting position next to the pool.   
  
Cutter turned to look at her directly. _Then I'm right, humans are the key to this quest of mine?_  
  
_More than you know. But we have a journey to make and I don't know how your brother can forgive me._  
  
Skywise looked at her for a long, tense moment. _Do you swear to me that you knew he wouldn't have been harmed?_  
  
_Yes._  
  
_Then I'll try to forgive. But if he's ever threatened like that again . . ._   
  
_Don't worry. He won't be in any danger._   
  
Reluctantly he forced himself to ease his resentment. Forgiveness would take time, rebuilding his trust would take time, but at least now he was willing to take that time. It was a good thing, too, for all too quickly the human couple was ready to begin the journey back to their people.   



	5. Book Two Part Three

Thus far Citaya had spent most of the weeks of journey curled up in the baskets that carried the children as they traveled during the night. She knew it was past time for her to commence the difficult task she had before her, and she didn't want to do it, but she had her orders. She stretched carefully and then yawned sleepily. A few wingbeats had her aloft and she glided over to land on Strongbow's wolf and then look up at him.   
  
_Well,_ he Sent questioningly, _what is it?_   
  
_Would you accept lessons from one such as I?_   
  
Strongbow had to concentrate to follow the dragonling's Sending, it kept fading in and out. _What do you mean?_   
  
_There are layers to Sending. I can help you use more of them, if you wish. HalfElven told me to make the offer, and at the least it is another skill to have in your quiver if you wish your message to go undeflected._  
  
Strongbow nodded briefly.   
  
\--  
It had taken long enough, but finally they arrived at the human village. HalfElven felt a surge of antipathy towards the grotesque Bone Woman as she rushed forward to attack Nonna and Adar. The old fool was bringing about her own demise and HalfElven would only be too happy to help her destroy herself. It was too bad that such a horror shared a touch of her gift.   
  
She sat on Darktumble's back, holding up her half of the branch to which they'd tied the buck. She'd insisted that she help carry the animal with Skywise. Her only explanation was that Cutter was Chief, and Chief's didn't carry burdens when there were others to carry them for him.   
  
Finally Cutter signaled for them to move forward by entering the village, proudly seated on his wolf. Skywise might not have cared for his speech, but HalfElven was busily composing her own additions to it. When they placed the buck down as a peace offering to the humans, she looked at Cutter and Sent a brief request. He nodded and she stepped forward.   
  
"See me, Humans, and know that I am here to remind you that Human and Spirit are made for each other, that you need them and their good mercy." She held up her five-fingered hand. "I serve the Spirits, and I say that just as you there are Good Spirits and there are Bad Ones." She motioned towards Bone Woman. "This one would have you believe that all Spirits are Bad, which is not so. I would question how one such as her would have such intimate knowledge of poison-filled hearts if hers is not so pricked." She turned to look at Bone Woman, and her luminous eyes evoked a panicked fear. She lowered her voice slightly from the oratory to the conversational. "Beware your gifts, that which you see can bring itself about if you don't know what you're doing."   
  
Then she turned and took her place behind Cutter. Bone Woman was beyond learning from the warning, but it had to be made, if only for HalfElven's peace of mind.   
  
\--  
Citaya watched Ember crawl into a magic-shaped cave and bring out elven bones. Their journey was progressing, as was her tutelage of Strongbow in the expanding of his Sending skills. Quickly she Sent to him in a low register, _Fearless little thing, isn't she?_  
  
Strongbow scowled at her. _She is a Chief's cub. It is proper._ He chose to Send high, at the upper limits of his sending reach. He was getting better.   
  
_What're you guys talking about?_ Both of them turned to look at Suntop. _What? I've heard you muttering back and forth for days._  
  
_Well, little one,_ Citaya might as well have sighed in defeat. _I guess your skills are better than I thought. Couldn't hurt to have someone else who can Send on unfamiliar channels. This is a secret, though._ She hoped that HalfElven wouldn't be too surprised to find out that she now had two students instead of just one. Then again, her friend would probably know about it even before it happened. She was annoying that way.   
  
\--  
The human's feast was simple, but was ornate given their level of development. HalfElven drew her mind back in from where she had been looking in on Citaya and Suntop. Yes, it would be good to know that there were at least two others the Black Snake couldn't listen in on.   
  
She was still reacquainting herself with her surroundings when a five-fingered hand reached for the Lodestone hanging from Skywise's neck. The scream of pain as he cut off the would-be thief's thumb grated up her spine.   
  
When Olbar said that he had taken away his brother's name, she looked over at him and Adar. "It's appropriate, then, that he be called Thief, for envy was always his failing, was it not, mighty Olbar? He envied you from the time you were boys. To him you had everything and he had nothing. He wanted all that was yours. Be careful, Chieftain, he wants even your title." She hadn't expected Bone Woman to just leave them alone. That one believed too strongly in tokens and talismans as having power of themselves, the idea that a talisman was merely a symbol for power was too profound for the relatively unsophisticated humans of that day.   
  
She turned away from the humans to look at Skywise. _Are you ok, Skywise?_ She reached out to his mind with honest and sincere concern. The Lodestone was as much a part of his identity as his soulname. It was merely a symbol, but symbols receive power from the ideas they represent, and he would have to part from it all too soon anyway. Other people would need the power of a Compass to lead them through dark places and confusion.   


_Yeah, I'm alright. Why didn't we scent him?_  
  
_It was Bone Woman's doing, I'll explain how later. She's a mean old thing who sees shadows and makes them real._  
  
\--  
The farewell by the waterfall pricked tears at the edges of HalfElven's sight. She stepped forward to tug lightly on the edge of Nonna's tunic. "You don't have to bear children from your womb to be a mother to them." Nonna looked at her in amazement. "I'm not a healer, so I cannot clear the blockage that makes your womb barren, but I know that Motherhood is more than the bearing of life. A child's mother is the face they see in the morning, the voice that soothes away night fears, the birth is only one little part of it."   
  
Nonna nodded. "I understand, Spirit-maiden."   
  
"I thought you would."   
  
\--  
Cutter looked at Nightrunner in amazement, and then his face crumbled as he understood that his wolf-friend would not be traveling with him any longer. HalfElven felt her heart break as Cutter bade farewell to his first wolf. Then Starjumper moved to leave with him. She looked over at Darktumble.   
  
_Are you going too?_  
  
_Yes, will go with friends. This one might find hide-name._  
  
_I'll see you at Blue Mountain, then._  
  
They turned back to the problem of the waterfalls. As Cutter tied off the vine, HalfElven grabbed hold of it. _I'll go down first, that way we'll know if there's a problem._   
  
The other two shrugged. She swung down and started easing her way down. She was already halfway down when she looked up and heard the whistling of a small stone. _SKYWISE!!!_ Dammit, why couldn't Bone Woman listen to warnings? Why was this threat so dang-blasted important to what must happen that not only a no-good thief must die, but also a rudimentary Seer? For this, the old hag would die, and Olbar would be certain of it. But then she'd seen that too with her gift. She'd just lost track of the fact that it was an if-then clause, if she hadn't threatened the elves, then she wouldn't face the future she feared.   
  
HalfElven was too far down to reach Cutter in time to help him deal with Thief, not that he would need the help. She was looking up when Thief came falling down, with Skywise behind him. Skywise broke his arm and caught himself on a handy root, but Thief knocked into HalfElven, breaking her hold on the vine. She managed to catch herself on the rock of the cliff-face, but it was a very near thing.   
  
_Cutter! You're gonna have to come down and get Skywise!_  
  
He was already starting to feel dizzy. _I can't._   
  
_You have to! I can't get to him in time!_ It hurt, but sadly enough it was true. There wasn't any way for her to climb up quickly enough without flying, and it wasn't time for that yet.   
  
Cutter grabbed hold of the vine and started to climb down. He got to Skywise in time, but with one hand holding the vine and the other one holding Skywise, he couldn't climb up. HalfElven was still trying to catch the vine again when Cutter cried out in frustration.   
  
"Curse you, humans!! Curse every last one of your murdering souls! And a curse on me, too -- for trusting ANY OF YOU!!"   
  
HalfElven managed to snatch the vine again just in time for it to start being pulled up, by a disobedient Olbar who  really wanted to ask them to look for his daughter.   
  
When they'd had time to listen to what he'd had to say, HalfElven smiled at him from where she knelt next to Skywise. "Be wary, Human Chieftain. The daughters of great men are often more valiant than boys. Why should you expect the offspring of a man who has the strength to grab what he wants and hold it to simply sit meekly in denial of everything he has given them in their blood?"   
  
Olbar looked at her with surprise in his eyes. "I will listen to your words."   
  
When he left though, they still had a problem on their hands; for all that Cutter might not have been paying attention. _Cutter, Skywise can't climb down with his arm like that._  
  
Cutter looked at Skywise for a moment, considering. _So what do we do?_  
  
HalfElven sighed and began pulling rope out of her little haversack. _We tie him piggy-back to me. I can carry him down._   
  
Skywise looked at her in surprise. _Can you do that?_  
  
_I have to._ Somehow Skywise heard the genuine concern for him that leaked through her mind's-voice.   
  
He nodded.   
  
Cutter helped her secure the bindings holding Skywise onto HalfElven's back. _Are you really sure you want to do this?_   
  
_Yes, I'm sure, enough with the second guessing already. You'll have enough on your hands going down yourself._ She picked up the vine and paused long enough to tilt her head back and lightly caress Skywise's forehead. _You alright back there?_   
  
_Other than feeling like an overgrown cub?_   
  
HalfElven smiled. If he was feeling well enough to joke around, then he would be alright. _I'm going down now._ She carefully started down the side of the cliff. She eased down a few lengths of the vine, feeling the ropes tighten around her and Skywise's weight settled. _Okay, Cutter, you can start down now_.  
  
After a moment she saw Cutter's form begin to ease down above her. _I'm started._  
  
_All right. I'm gonna go down a few more lengths, just be slow and careful, and don't look down._  
  
That did it. He glanced back down at them as she was climbing down and clutched the vine, frozen in place. _I can't do it!_   
  
HalfElven looked up in concern. _Yes, you can. Concentrate on the rocks in front of your face. One hand below the other, shift your weight down, find a toe hold, that's it, that's it._ She kept up the steady stream of comforting thought, keeping Cutter distracted from the heights they were descending.   
  
Skywise's weight grew heavier and heavier and the ropes that bound him to her were pulled tighter and tighter around her body. Once she slipped, but she'd had a good hold on the vine and paused only a short about of time before moving on. Cutter never saw the slip, and she never let up in the silent monologue that was so comforting.   
  
Skywise saw though, and he heard the deep breath she took just before some strange force began pushing up on him from below, lifting a bit of his weight off of her shoulders and back. He didn't dare ask her what she was doing, he could hear the words she was constantly sending to Cutter to help him continue down. He could feel the magic floating around them. He didn't know what sort of concentration it took to both Send and Lift, but as his mind reached out to touch hers, he found genuine concern for their well-being. She  wasn't going to lead them into danger. She wasn't going to betray them on this quest.   
  
When the reached the bottom of the cliff-face, Cutter was ashen and trembling but he had made the descent safely. He tried to help HalfElven ease open the knots that tied Skywise to her back, but they had been pulled too tight by the weight of carrying Skywise all this way. In the end they both sighed in defeat and pulled out knives to cut him loose.   
  
Skywise looked at HalfElven when he had been loosed from the last of the rope fragments. _You carried us both. You didn't have to do that._   
  
HalfElven felt the last shreds of his resentment shatter and melt away. She should be happy, she had regained his trust and then some. So why did her heart suddenly chill with dread?   
  
She looked down at her hands as she stuffed the pieces of rope back into her haversack; never know when they could come in handy. _Someone had to. But thank you._   
  
Cutter looked at both of them and drew a deep breath. _Alright. Let's go._ They were on their way to the Valley of Endless Sleep.   
  
\--   
Their journey was wearing on Skywise. He was in pain almost constantly and it hurt HalfElven to see him suffering. Twice she resorted to pulling out of her hidden pocket the tiny bottle of white pills and offering him one with a mouthful of water to help him swallow the medicine. Skywise looked at the white pill dubiously, the first time she offered one. "What is it?"   
  
"It'll help ease the pain, that's all. Trust me, I'm no healer, so I have to resort to other methods for helping people. It's made from the powder beneath the bark of a particular tree."   
  
Skywise glanced over at Cutter who shrugged his lack of advice to give. Finally Skywise took the pill, and followed her suggestion of placing it on the back of his tongue first before swallowing the water.   
  
Within fifteen minutes the pain had eased. He didn't argue with her the second time.   
  
She watched Cutter and Skywise play briefly like a pair of cubs before they discovered the mystery that was the Forbidden Grove.   
  
_I wonder what really happened to him that he's so afraid of this wood?_ Cutter mused, remembering Olbar and his tale.   
  
HalfElven stifled a smile. _You'll find out. I have every confidence in your ability to sort through mysteries, even when you have no patience for them._  
  
He glared at her, but she smiled back innocently.   
  
Webs and cocoons were everywhere, and their contents were a mystery soon solved. The lone bird was eager enough to escape the confines of the nest, but just what was spinning all these webs, and not using the trapped prey, was something Cutter wondered about.   
  
Unfortunately, the last pain-pill had decided to wear off and Skywise had to rest. Cutter looked for a moment at HalfElven. _I'll look after him, my Chief. You need to explore more, and he needs to rest. There is nothing here that we would be any use against._   
  
He looked at her quizzically. _Just what do you mean by that?_   
  
She sighed and eased down beside where Skywise sat, leaning her back against the tree root. She reached over and helped him ease into a half-laying position, with one arm and her shoulder supporting him and the other arm draped across his chest. _Go, my Chief, go find what you are looking for. We'll be right here when you get back. I swear it._   
  
Cutter nodded and left.   
  
Skywise was already drifting off to sleep as he sent a last message to HalfElven. _Thank you._   
  
\--  
Skywise was standing on a rope overhanging a huge emptiness. His eyes followed the rope to where it connected to another rope, and then further to another, and he saw that he was standing on the edge of a great web. A flash of color caught his eye and he saw that each of the ropes was comprised of hundreds of tiny threads, each with its own color and path through the winding whole.   
  
Again his eyes traveled down and this time they went to the center of the web, and saw a giant clear stone that glowed blue. He had seen stones like this before, the Trolls called them Crystal, but he thought he saw a shape inside the stone, so he carefully made is way to the center, and saw HalfElven encased in the azure crystal.   
  
She looked at him. She could see him and the expression on her face was one he couldn't interpret. A shadow fell over the two of them and he suddenly felt a chill wind blow across the web. Something dark and sinister was coming.   
  
Skywise looked around at the suddenly shadowed world around him and felt a strange fear. He suddenly knew that he had to find safety. He looked back to HalfElven. "Come on, we have to go!" He tried to talk to her, but his voice was weak and barely audible to his own ears. He gathered his wits and tried a Send, with somewhat more success. _Come on, we need to get out of here._  
  
HalfElven shook her head sadly.   
  
Skywise raised his sword and began to beat on the crystal that encased her. _Come on, this isn't safe. Who trapped you here? We need to leave before the spider shows up._  
  
Again HalfElven shook her head sadly. It might have been a trick of the light, but Skywise thought he saw tears in her eyes.   
  
_What's wrong? Why won't you let me in?_   
  
Finally a faint answer came through the crystal encasing her. _I don't dare._   
  
_What do you mean, you don't dare?_ He beat harder on the crystal as the wind picked up speed, he thought he saw the first signs of weakness beginning to thread through the stone. _I am going to get you out of there!_   
  
He watched a single tear creep down her face. _Of that I have no doubt._  
  
Just then a loud, puppy-ish, yapping sound broke through, along with the sound of fighting.   
  
\--  
Skywise woke up to a cloud of brightly-colored flying creatures surrounding him and HalfElven, and Cutter standing above them with a wiggling cub in one arm and his sword out and waving in the other.   
  
The discoveries that the winged-creatures presented distracted the two of them from HalfElven, who knelt for a moment, arms crossed and holding her own shoulders, as she shook with carefully controlled sobs, tears flowing down her face.   
  
Skywise grabbed up the pup and Cutter went in search of his family, and still HalfElven cried for what would be.   
  
She caught up with them just as Cutter and Skywise finished getting the whole story of their journey from Leetah, Ember, and Suntop. Citaya was curled around Suntop's feet and launched herself at HalfElven the moment she came into view.   
  
They were waiting when Cutter emerged with Suntop. They watched as Ember accepted the world her father lived in and they watched Cutter and Leetah go off to renew their union. For a brief, heart-rending moment HalfElven envied them.   
  
But she had sworn never again. Losing her Prince had been too much for her.   
  
After a while she had a chance to sit with Suntop and ask him what he thought of taking care of Citaya. He smiled shyly. "I like her, but she talks a lot."   
  
"I warned you about that."   
  
Skywise and Ember were off learning the joys of hunting, and Suntop looked at her quizzically. "Why have you been crying?"   
  
"Things don't always turn out the way you want them to. I carry a difficult burden."   
  
"Like the message I had to give Father?"   
  
"Did Citaya tell you that?"   
  
He hung his head. "Kinda. When I was trying to keep Strongbow from shooting the bird, she told me that you would understand."   
  
"Sometimes it's difficult when you see something unclearly like that. Things aren't always what they seem to be, and sometimes the way things connect is so convoluted that it takes quite a bit to sort all the relationships out. I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to trust me when I tell you that I know what I'm talking about. Sometimes bad things have to happen, that worse things would happen if you tried to stop them. But most of all, most of all, little one, you cannot stop all the bad things. Don't even try. If you try to keep those you care for perfectly safe then you only hurt them more."   
  
The look on his face said louder than words that he wasn't sure he understood what she was saying. She smiled at him and reached her arms out to enfold him in a hug. "It's ok if you don't understand me. You'll get to see what happens when someone tries to keep people too safe soon enough. Don't worry about it for now."   
  
Just then howls rang out from Nightfall and Redlance. HalfElven let Suntop run to join his sister and Skywise. She knew what was going to happen all too well. They were on their way to Blue Mountain and she hoped that Citaya had managed to teach Strongbow well enough because the Dark One had him now.

 


	6. Book Three Part One

The pain was excruciating. Within the shadows of his mind Wyl clung to the sureness that was himself. Dimly he could hear a call within the silences of thought – high-pitched and quiet but growing closer. A burst of strength shot through him and he glared at his tormenter.   
  
The black-robed figure merely looked puzzled momentarily. She thought she had felt something fly past her from somewhere outside, something which energized her toy of a captive. But that was impossible. There was nothing in Sending she could not hear, no one stronger than she.   
  
She turned and rendered the wild beast-elf's mate unconscious with a thought. She was starting to get bored with these smaller, animalistic kin of theirs. If this is what the outside world had rendered those who rejected the safety of Blue Mountain into, then she was glad she had chosen to remain as she was. But she was growing bored. Perhaps the humans would send her a new plaything.   
  
\---  
HalfElven never lost stride as she ran with the others, but she smiled to herself even as she ached for Strongbow's pain. The Black Snake would underestimate her. The only question still was, would she take the long route, or the short one?   
  
\---  
The pipes stopped their singing.   
  
Somewhere in the depths of her trance, the rockshaper Door noted the abrupt end of the fragile music. She paused in her preparations since the signals weren't right for her to shape the portal she guarded.   
  
If there had been room in her devotion Door would have remembered being named Sekura; she would have remembered the mischievous glint that made her face so appealing to lovemates. The girl Sekura was gone though, and Door could not remember her. There was no time to remember all she had lost for the pipes had started again and the signal came to do her duty.   
  
As they pushed their way into the mountain, only one Wolfrider was prepared for the look of the shaped edifice. Skywise glanced over at HalfElven's face and saw that it had turned hard and furious, her eyes crackling with anger. Her gaze was focused on the black-robed elf that Cutter had on her knees, New Moon at her throat. "Damned Otaku," she muttered, apparently to herself, "Fate has brought Change to you, ready or not." He didn't understand her words, but he wasn't going to ask, not yet at least.   
  
HalfElven contained herself, barely, until her tribe was freed to call their kin. She joined the Sending, briefly hiding a silent handclasp with Strongbow in the mass of calls. She permitted a tight smile of success as the tribe rejoined itself around her.   
  
Moonshade's announcement, though, caused the moment of inattention Winnowill had been waiting for and she took the opportunity presented to escape the barbarian's grasp and begin to make her way to her prisoner, signalling the attack on the Wolfriders.   
  
As the Chosen Eight flew down, HalfElven felt the self-imposed limits shatter and she leapt into the air to join her tribemates in battle. She was already racing her way after Winnowill when Leetah called out to them.   
  
If Strongbow was surprised to see her flying, he didn't show it, but their eyes met for a brief moment and she could feel him measuring her.   
  
Some dispassionate part of Winnowill's consciousness noticed the strange elf maiden who flew like one of her own Gliders. Her soul shuddered when she realized that the girl, barely more than a child (like the barbarian Tyldak had Recognized), was of mixed blood -- human and elf. Before that moment Winnowill would have thought that such a union was impossible, for all that some of the Chosen Eight had been curious with her pets. She knew of the animal blood in the Wolfriders and knew that at some point there had been a halfling in their heritage, but she hadn't considered meeting another halfling, much less in her mountain. Something in the way the girl held herself, completely unafraid even as the birdkiller's life lay in Winnowill's delicate hands, taunted the twisted healer. Here was a puzzle to rival even her pets in the hidden bowels of the mountain, such an interesting tangle of high blood and low blood to untangle.   
  
But then a glint in the eyes of the girl who floated motionless seemed to giggle at her, much like Door used to giggle before Winnowill had seen to defeating her, and she realized that the girl knew how much of a puzzle one such as she would be, and was enjoying it. Winnowill gathered her energies to kill the birdkiller when a dark skinned barbarian rushed forward to shield it with her touch.   
  
Cutter declared he would speak with her "chief" and Winnowill decided that she would do just that, but the floating barbarian's face hardened. "All of us are going then." They turned to look at her. "We aren't leaving Strongbow behind to await the decision. Citaya!"   
  
A green lizard-like creature appeared in midair near HalfElven. With a nod from her friend she popped out of sight and then suddenly was inside the cage. She settled down on Strongbow's shoulders, taking up the shielding of the archer so that Leetah could back off at HalfElven's look. "Back up, archer, as far back as you can."   
  
Winnowill watched, intrigued, surely she wasn't also a rockshaper? Perhaps this one would do to serve her, once broken and hidden.   
  
The Wolfriders looked at HalfElven in confusion as she motioned them back, and then held her hand out in front of her, towards the stone bars that caged Strongbow. She closed her fist suddenly and the bars shattered, throwing rock shards in all directions and setting loose a fine smoke of powdered rock. Then a wave of her other hand and the smoke cleared.   
  
Strongbow emerged and nodded to her, even as Moonshade rushed to her lifemate's side.   
  
HalfElven turned to the rest of her tribe. "Now we can go see the chief of this mockery."

 

****

HalfElven could just about kick herself from here to Pern. She quietly followed the other Wolfriders as they made their way through the labyrinthine hallways of Blue Mountain, but in the silences of her mind she seethed at her own idiocy. Whatever possessed her to show her hand this early in the game? Goodness knows the Black Snake wasn't one to simply sit still and let things happen. Knowing that HalfElven had that much power at her disposal was not something the jealous Winnowill was going to simply let stand. She forced her breathing to calm. Anger was not going to change matters, it wasn't going to free the Gliders or help Door where she sat.   
  
At least Winnie didn't know about the range of Sending frequencies and she didn't know about HalfElven's Seer's gift. With luck HalfElven could salvage What Must Be, before events spiraled into chaos.   
  
Slowly she calmed herself and began a series of infinitesimal adjustments to the events around her in an effort to reclaim the necessary timing of their stay. Now was definitely not the time to shout her challenge to the Lord of Blue Mountain.   
  
\---  
Lord Voll was old, and he didn't wear his years lightly. HalfElven edged closer to Strongbow where he glared at the Chosen Eight. At their entrance Lord Voll started to see the archer free. He looked at Winnowill.   
  
Before anything could be said, though, Cutter spoke up to demand the full story. As the tale of woeful events unfolded, HalfElven could sense the puzzlement her Chief was wearing as plainly as his hair. He offered to hunt in the place of the food that the grounded flier would have gathered, but that was not what Winnie wanted from them.   
  
Kill Briersting. That was her demand, and it sounded far too logical to a people who had lived so long on ideals that they forgot pragmatism.   
  
Strongbow's hands clenched even as his mate sheltered Briersting with her own body. HalfElven glanced towards him in sympathy and Sent high and quick. _Never._  
  
Slowly Strongbow unclenched his hands and nodded to her. Leetah, though, was quicker with a variation on the argument that HalfElven would have used. "You might as well command that we put our own children to death!"   
  
Though he accused her of cruelty, HalfElven could feel Voll's sudden surge of suppressed hope at Leetah's words. He didn't know about the murders within his own walls, about the twisted mockery of an advisor who had rendered all wombs around her barren to avoid being reminded of the product of her own.   
  
But HalfElven did and even the unborn could cry out for vengeance.   
  
The arrival of the children changed everything within Blue Mountain. And though she buried it so deeply that even she couldn't sense it, HalfElven felt Winnowill's heart cry out in anguish at their cheerful, fearless trust in the sure love of their parents. She didn't want to think about how she betrayed the trust of her own son.   
  
In an effort to regain control Winnowill claimed something that wasn't theirs to claim, but no one in Blue Mountain was going to argue with her because they all shared the self deception. She said that they were the High Ones.   
  
Hubris was having fun tonight.   


****

There was silence for a stunned moment as the Wolfriders tried to understand what had been said. Suntop looked up at Winnowill for a long instant. He quickly whispered to his father and then turned to bury his face in his father's protective embrace.   
  
The boy's actions puzzled Lord Voll and Winnowill's glib response was less than comforting. Rage boiled up in HalfElven's heart at the perversion Winnowill had made of herself and the instincts she bore that were a birthright of HalfElven's bloodline. It took all of her strength to silence the rumbling growl that would lead to a formal challenge. It wasn't time yet; it wasn't time yet.   
  
"Could it be --?" Leetah's musings offered an outlet.   
  
"I can glide." HalfElven said in a harsh tone. "I can shape. I can lift. You don't see me claiming to be a High One." She didn't mention the fact that her mother could very well make such a claim, and probably could back it up at that.   
  
Cutter's reassurances to his cubs, though, shocked Lord Voll that they could ever be considered necessary. He did, however, find them a secure (relatively speaking) nook with a bathing fountain where the tribe could hold a council.   
  
HalfElven's heart went out to Dewshine when she appeared and hesitantly joined them. HalfElven could feel her heartache and shame shimmering in the air around the fragile elf-maid.   
  
When they got back to the topic and hand Cutter said, "We don't know enough about the Gliders to tell true from false."   
  
HalfElven snorted in disbelief even as Strongbow interjected his opinions on the subject. Skywise was willing to concede that Winnowill might have been telling the truth.   
  
_So what if they are?_ Strongbow demanded in an emphatic Send. By conscious choice HalfElven didn't interrupt his heartfelt, nostalgic plea. _We can return to the Way and start a new Holt -- but not if we stay here!_   
  
HalfElven stood and caught his gaze, and didn't let it go. she wasn't Challenging him, she just didn't let go of his eyes. "Yes, Strongbow, there will be a new Holt, but not just yet. The Way will survive, and you will help it, but Change has come as it came to those Firstcomers who became High Ones, as it has always come to Timmorn's descendants. We Wolfriders," she emphasized the pronoun, "aren't through with Blue Mountain and Cutter's Quest does not end here. We will  never bow to Winnowill and the Gliders are not High Ones. They imitate without understanding and so have been perverted over time. With your own eyes you will see the difference.   
  
"Strongbow, never forget, you may run with wolves, live like them, even bear their blood with pride, but you are not wolves. You are Elves and as such looking to the past and to the future is not evil." She paused for a moment and then chuckled slightly, at herself apparently.   
  
Pike interrupted any further discussion and then Tyldak flew in and Dewshine's dilemma was revealed to all.   
  
The Council broke up at that point, some to nap and some to think. Leetah wandered off and HalfElven found a corner and slid down into a sitting position, trembling. Nightfall found her there.   
  
"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.   
  
HalfElven's head was leaned back and tears crept past her closed eyelids. "Oh Nightfall, you have a heart the size of this whole world, but I don't think you can help me."   
  
Nightfall knealt down next to her. "I can listen."   
  
"Dewshine's in agony. And I know exactly what she's going through."   
  
Nightfall's eyes widened in surprise. "Who? When?"   
  
HalfElven snorted, a half-amused sound. "More accurately the question should be who not."   
  
Nightfall was puzzled. "What do you mean?"   
  
HalfElven opened her eyes and looked at the golden-eyed maid for a moment before answering. "It's all of them, Nightfall. Some are stronger than others, my sympathy gives them strength, but I feel all of them hammering on my soul constantly. I've resisted, I have that much power, but I still feel it."   
  
"But Recognition --"   
  
"--means cubs. I am unique. I can, to a degree, control my own fertility. But the first time I join, I will conceive and I refuse to conceive without Recognition."   
  
"But if you've already --"   
  
"I hold it in abeyance. I am affected. I feel the pain. But I will not force that union on someone who does not freely choose it. I have the power, I will use it."   
  
For a moment a flash of anger crossed Nightfall's face. "The tribe needs cubs, and you are preventing them?" Her own agony was painfully close to the surface.   
  
HalfElven sighed. "Dewshine's fertility brings her no joy. Not yet anyway."   
  
Nightfall was silent for a moment. "You said it was stronger with some --?"   
  
HalfElven nodded. "I'm an emotional person, when someone has my sympathy it gives his soul strength in trying to bond to my own."   
  
"Who?"   
  
With a sigh, HalfElven told her. "Cutter, Strongbow, Skywise," a pause, "and Redlance."   
  
Neither heard Moonshade's muffled gasp of surprise. They couldn't see her and she knew she shouldn't be listening in. She had been about to leave, until her lifemate was named, and now she couldn't tear herself away.   
  
Nightfall's face showed several emotions chasing each other across it. She struggled with conflicting desires for a moment and then sighed. "Do you want me to speak to him?"   
  
HalfElven reached out and grabbed hold of Nightfall's hand. "No." Her voice was harsh with emotion and she clutched the hand with an almost painful grasp, her eyes boring into Nightfall's. "I promise you, Nightfall, I will not Recognize Redlance, come what may, until you have a cub from him safe in your arms. You'll have the power. Join your souls as one and you can force Recognition's union. You'll need a healer to help since this would be your first child and you'll need the power of a special environment, but you can do it."   
  
Stunned, Nightfall simply nodded. "A-and the others?"   
  
HalfElven dropped Nightfall's hand and leaned back again. "Cutter has Leetah and I would never bear any cub who could challenge Ember's position as the next Chief. Skywise lost too much when he lost Foxfur and there are others who must be stronger in his heart."   
  
"Strongbow?"   
  
Moonshade's heart leapt into her throat.   
  
"Strongbow looks only to Moonshade. It's at least half the reason I find him so irresistible. I cannot - I will not ever do anything to threaten their bond. Moonshade would have to agree completely. There's also a complicating factor involving a third party's choice, but that's -- complicated."   
  
There was silence for a moment. In the end Nightfall gave HalfElven a brief squeeze of sympathy and left to find her lifemate and a much needed rest. HalfElven stood and wandered away in thought.   
  
Moonshade sat where she was for a very long time in silence. 


	7. Book Three Part Two

The arguing would not stop.  
  
HalfElven held her head - concentrating on containing the headache that threatened to split her skull open. She dared not seek Leetah's help with the pain - she had problems of her own and the contact would reveal far too much about her mixed heritage and the strain she was now under. She could feel her heartbeat pounding with the throb of the pain. She ached for Strongbow's genuine fear. Her heart stopped when Skywise challenged him to question the stargazer's Wolfrider heritage. Eventually even Fahr would wonder whether or not he was a Wolfrider anymore.  
  
A thread of wolfsong wound its way into the mountain, easing the pain in HalfElven's head. Starjumper and Darktumble had returned. A thin, light touch brushed HalfElven's mind - bringing with it a blessed coolness. _Friend_  
  
_Darktumble?_  
  
_Have hide-name of own_  
  
_My friend . . ._  
  
_Friend will travel again?_  
  
_Not for a long time_  
  
_Will go with Friend to travel. Will take new name but will call self Darktumble until then._  
  
The howl of grief and remembrance went up for Nightrunner and HalfElven joined in, the pain eased for the moment. But all too quickly the arguments started up again. Strongbow was storming for Door.  
  
"Don't . . . don't go, Strongbow." HalfElven tried to speak up, but for some reason her voice was incredibly weak. "That's just what she wants." But it was too late, he was already locked into the telepathic battle to escape the mountain.  
  
Somehow HalfElven managed to stumble over to watch. She wanted to help him, she wanted to float up and wend her way into the prison that was Door's mind so she could free Sekura, but Strongbow needed to do this on his own, and she was not going to lessen his accomplishment, not after letting his lifemate choose for herself the path she would follow.  
  
Then all was quiet again in the Halls of Blue Mountain.  
  
HalfElven collapsed where she stood, aching and heartsore. Dewshine climbed through the mountain to set Petalwing free. For that act of courageous generosity her soulname would be stolen and used against her. Tears of frustrated fury coursed down HalfElven's cheeks. She ached to tackle the Black Snake, take her down with a shoulder to her belly, and then use the telempathy that was one of her gifts to force her to see all that she was and all that she would become. She wanted to beat her senseless for corrupting the gift HalfElven would give all her Sight to have, and for torturing the fruit of her womb, when HalfElven herself was barren, by choice but still barren.  
  
She wanted to slap some sense into Lord Voll, make him see how he had destroyed his people by making them too safe. She wanted to take all of the Gliders and make them see that they had not really chosen anything and if they didn't change now then they would all die, and not by their own choice . . .  
  
But making them do anything would make her no better than that which she hated. She could not save Blue Mountain, not in the time it had left. Not without seriously changing the course of events and remapping the entire web that was the future of Abode.  
  
HalfElven felt a hand on her shoulder. Suntop had come over to her. "Are you ok?" he whispered.  
  
She nodded, then shook her head, then sighed and nodded again. "I'll be ok eventually. Oh little one . . ." She reached up and pulled the child into her arms, holding him close as she had once been held close by a grieving sister. Suntop didn't mind. Ember would have, but then Ember was more active than her twin.  
  
"I think dinner's ready, or something like that." The boy looked up into her tear streaked face. "Maybe eating will help you feel better?"  
  
HalfElven nodded. "Probably. Problems are always more difficult when you're hungry, huh?"  
  
Suntop nodded, and then the two of them stood to rejoin the tribe at Lord Voll's table. "Suntop?" HalfElven said, as they began to make their way through the halls, "you have a peculiar form of bravery within you. Ember is like your father in that she will fight, but you are like your mother. Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and let your wings catch you."  
  
Suntop put his hand in hers. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You'll know when the time comes. Just don't be afraid. You'll be alright, I promise."  
  
Suntop nodded. "Ok."  
  
The feast went as it was supposed to. Ember was outspoken as always, asking the question that needed to be asked, but was not given the answer she deserved. Unfortunately all of Blue Mountain shared in that deception, they believed themselves to be their parents, and understanding would not come until Leetah woke Lord Voll to more than she intended.  
  
Leetah prevented Cutter's retelling of the origins of his tribe, and lost the shirt he'd been given because Bacchanalian Pike was a bit clumsy with lit candles.  
  
Skywise went off with Aroree, and HalfElven wished them well. The Glider maiden needed him. He would awaken her to the freedom and the burden of choices.  
  
Cutter left the table to follow Leetah and HalfElven smiled at Suntop as she, too, rose to leave. Lord Voll looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time.  
  
"What is your tale?" He looked so kindly, but the authority he had taken had been misused, however he had meant things to be in the beginning.  
  
"I travel with the Wolfriders, Lord Voll, but I am different from them." She held her hand out to show him her five fingers and his eyes widened. "You would do well to look within your own walls more closely. Forgive me, but I must depart for a little while, I must speak to some of my companions. I will return and I will have much to tell you."  
  
He looked into her face curiously. Then he slowly nodded. "Very well."  
  
She turned and made her way out of the dining hall.  
  
She made it to Egg in time to see Cutter and Leetah arguing about whether or not his mercy was laudable. "She threatened our cubs!" Cutter told her.  
  
"You should have killed her while you had the chance." They turned to look at HalfElven in surprise. "Next time you face her down you won't dare kill her, she'll be too far gone. It'll be even worse, because you won't dare let her die either."  
  
Leetah glared at HalfElven. "How can you say that?"  
  
The headache erupted again and HalfElven fought against the pain to glare back. "Because it's true. She has threatened your children, who are brave as each of you in their own ways. You faced down death itself for your powers, Healer, and your son will leap into the Abyss to rescue his sensei. Make no mistake, though, Winnowill is worse than humans dream of being for she does not threaten lightly and she is afraid."  
  
"She wouldn't - couldn't actually hurt . . ."  
  
"In a heartbeat if it would make you leave this mountain and leave Lord Voll ignorant of the outside world."  
  
The parents joined hands and the three of them dashed off for the dining hall. "Then let's tell him everything!"

 

\---

Cutter glanced at HalfElven, _Sensei?  
  
Teacher – with utmost respect. Anyone can impart a lesson, not everyone is worthy of the title "One who comes before". _  
  
"Leetah! Cutter! Wait! It's Dewshine!" Scouter was plainly worried, and with good reason – his lovemate couldn't even stand without help.  
  
Dewshine's agony tore at HalfElven's heart. "I won't submit to this. I won't!" she declared. "I'll be a wolfrider and bear a wolfrider's cub -- or I'll die!"  
  
"What in the world gave you the idea that you had to give up being a wolfrider? Or that any child of your womb would not share some part of you?" All of them looked at HalfElven, stunned. "Recognition joins male and female in head, hand, and heart to create the best possible offspring. That's all it does. Anything other than that -- is voluntary."  
  
Dewshine opened her mouth to ask a question and was interrupted by Petalwing's timely arrival. Tears turned to smiles just as chaos erupted.  
  
"Stop! Stop this at once! Kureel! Tyldak! Obey me!" But Lord Voll was helpless before the violence engendered by the power behind his throne -- even as it sent him into darkness.  
  
_Father! Father!_ Ember called out to the most powerful person in her life, sure that he would make it all better _. Help!_  
  
"Ember!" Cutter cried out in horror.  
  
HalfElven was on her feet and running before the rest of the message got through.  
  
_Winnowill has Suntop! Help! Help!_  
  
The chase was on -- but Winnowill had riddled the Mountain with tricks through the genius of her mad son, and she had a head start.  
  
"MY CUB! SHE HAS MY CUB!" In fury the frightened parent rounded on his tribemates. "Six of you were here -- and you couldn't save him?!" Their chief's terror-fueled anger was great, as was the collective shame for failing him.  
  
Their one information source – Tyldak – wasn't talking, except to inform them of Winnowill's demands. Dewshine, though, had had enough. "What are you, Tyldak? Your body . . . your words . . . your very thoughts . . . are they your own -- or Winnowill's?"  
  
HalfElven broke in. "She came to you quietly, did she not? Doubtless you made a habit of watching the birds in flight, and your longing would have been obvious. Did she wonder aloud how marvelous it would be to have wings to soar the skies with? You probably think it was your idea – that you proposed the fleshshaping – but she probably spoke softly, carefully, putting the thoughts into your mind that she wanted you to have. All it takes is patience, and locked away in this deathless tomb what else did she have but time to learn patience?" All eyes were on HalfElven and she looked around at her tribe.  
  
"In a peculiar way I understand Winnowill. I despise the choices she has made, the ruination she has brought to a gift I would trade much to have. I will never forgive her, though, for the murders she has committed in these walls or the torment of the innocent."  
  
She turned again to Tyldak. "And now you have a choice, probably the first in a thousand years or more. Winnowill expects you to obey her will – and Cutter expects you to disobey her. Conflicting expectations creates a peculiar sort of freedom, not true freedom which is the absence of expectations, but a very peculiar sort in any event. Which will it be, Wing-gift?"  
  
\---  
Outside Blue Mountain, Strongbow was rapidly becoming upset. His lifemate was distracted and withdrawn; something was bothering her and he wanted to know what was going on. _Eyern . . ._ he began, an entreaty for explanation at the forefront of his mind.  
  
_Oh Wyl . . ._ Her mind's voice was close to tears, something had her very upset and he found that it made him angry.  
  
_Tell me._ It wasn't quite a command, he loved her too much for that, but it was very close. He would not endure this trouble standing between them any longer.  
  
_Ha – HalfElven said . . ._ she paused, then gulped and let the whole tale fall out in a rush – what she had seen, what she had heard, along with her stunned fear and how she didn't know what he would say or do.  
  
For a very long moment Strongbow was completely silent. Images flooded his mind – HalfElven offering water to the wolves in the desert; the way the pack accepted her unquestioningly; the touch of her mind when she strengthened him against Winnowill; her contained fury that shattered the cage which had held him for fourteen days; the five fingers on her hands. Strongbow shuddered.

_Does she know?  
  
I don't think so.  
_  
Just then a sending found them. _Oh Strongbow . . . ! They need us! They need you!_  
  
  
Moments later – _@!!**! I had to break my tail to get out -- now I have to put it in a sling to get back in! Come on. Well . . . I'm back._  
  
The chief and archer patched up their differences quickly, each admitting to fault and then forgetting ill-feeling for the needs of the moment.  
  
HalfElven watched them silently, one hand resting on Darktumble's head. It was easier to feel like a wolfrider with her friend nearby. Strongbow glanced over and her and when he met her eyes she knew that Moonshade had indeed heard her, that she had told Strongbow, and that he was going to skip the pleasantries.  
  
_Why?_ He didn't have to elaborate.  
  
_You, of all people, should understand that I will not entrap anyone. I will never become a Winnowill. If I can choose, then I insist that you be given the same chance.  
  
Complications? _ Ah, yes, she had mentioned a third party to Nightfall.  
  
_Will make more sense a couple of turns from now. I'm not in any hurry._  
  
Strongbow nodded quickly and they turned their attention back to their chief – and his battle of words with the unseen Two-Edge.  
  
"Winnowill has a son . . . a sun . . . a sunny son Suntop! Come and see . . ."  
  
Tyldak had chosen -- to stay out of the battle. Winnowill would account in treason, though, for her mind refused to accept that her will was not supreme.  
  
As the Wolfriders climbed down into the secret tunnels Two-Edge and his father had dug another struggle was going on.  
  
Winnowill dragged the struggling Suntop through the under tunnels and the child slowly came to understand what HalfElven had been warning him about. The evil one held Savah within the darkness of her soul, and he was not strong enough to fight for her directly. There was only one thing to do.  
  
Suntop drew on his mother's courage and leapt up to lock his arms around Winnowill's neck, to press his forehead to hers. He closed his eyes tightly -- and dove into the abyss.  
  
_Savah . . . Savah, I'm here . . . Where are you . . .?_


	8. Book Three Part Three

 

_When we last left our heroes, Suntop had been snatched by a desperate Winnowill in a gambit to force the lively Wolfriders from Blue Mountain in exchange for the boy's return. But mortal or no, Wolfriders do not sit quietly when a child's life is at stake. They followed Winnowill into her hidden labyrinths within the mountain - past a tunnel of explosive glass balls and even now drew close enough to see her last desperate move. She called in her human pets -- and lied to them._  
  
HalfElven's mind snorted in self-disgust. Geez, even her thinking was using clichés. For a brief moment she felt sorry for Winnowill, trapped in a web of her own making. She could not admit that she was wrong to keep her people too safe, that she had condemned them to a slow, lingering unlife. She would blame the Wolfriders and lose a little more of herself with each passing day until she was nothing more than a caricature of herself, a ghost in her jailer's body.   
  
HalfElven forced herself back to the present, and to the confused humans who faced them. She boldly stepped to the front, ahead of Cutter. "The Black Snake lies to you!" Did Winnowill actually shudder? "The child does not belong to the Bird Spirits. He belongs to the Wolf-Eyed Spirits who came here seeking their kin. Your mistress has stolen him to chase the wolf-eyed ones from this mountain because she is afraid!"   
  
"I fear nothing!" Winnowill shouted as her humans faltered in uncertainty.   
  
"You fear change. You fear Danger. You fear Living. You have smothered this mountain and  you have killed Lord Voll!"   
  
"I have protected him!"   
  
"You have killed him!"   
  
Cutter nodded to the others and they began climbing up the columns while Winnowill was distracted by her shouting match with HalfElven. Unfortunately, the vines above were strangleweed.   
  
Winnowill laughed. She turned. Strongbow released. The arrow hit. Suntop's body fell. HalfElven could hear Suntop return to himself.   
  
"Mother! Savah says Winnowill's sick. She needs to be healed!"   
  
HalfElven shouted to the humans. "Look not at skins if you wish a link between them and you!" She held up her hand, fingers spread wide. "Look at me. I have bird-wing ears and five fingers. I run with the wolf-eyed spirits and I tell you now, the spirits are no different than you are. They love; they laugh. They fight; they cry. They cut; they bleed. They mourn and yes, they do die." Winnowill had fled. Cutter and the others followed. Kakuk looked at HalfElven as she demolished the basis of his life. "Your mistress hates that she lied to you. She will not, though, take responsibility. She is a spoiled child who blames everyone but herself. She will blame the Wolf-Kin and she will blame you. Blue Mountain must fall in its appointed time. Be prepared and do not forget." Then she turned and followed her tribe, arriving just as Leetah caught up to Winnowill.   
  
"Choose, Winnowill, choose now and choose well. Change and be healed or die and change anyway."   
  
Leetah's searing touch hurt far worse than the wound in her shoulder. Winnowill was soiled, corrupted by her own will. She could not face the horror. She would not. She stepped backwards and slipped from Leetah's hands.   
  
"You have chosen Death. Accept the consequences."   
  
The elfin family reunited in sorrow.

 

****

Lord Voll listened in amazement as the Wolfrider voices stumbled over each other to tell the tale of Winnowill's manipulations within his stone walls but even that paled in comparison to his shock when the Wolfrider maiden collapsed and the cause was Recognition - with his own Tyldak.   
  
New life within the ancient mountain, what a wondrous gift these Wolfriders were and how tender and loving with each other! Scouter's selfless sacrifice struck Voll's heart. His own people did not feel that deeply, that purely.   
  
In sorrow he turned away from the reconciliations and found his way back to Egg. How had they lost their way so drastically? How could Winnowill have misunderstood? He had thought they had succeeded in rebuilding his parent's lives.   
  
Then the grand deception revealed itself to him as he stood upon Egg's sculpture. It was all a lie! They were not High Ones! Their lives were merely a too-accurate mockery of those Firstcomers. He must have shouted because the Wolfriders came rushing in to find him atop the Egg. One voice, though, did not cry out in surprise as he fell, but did not hit the floor.   
  
The strange girl, Demi-Wren?, stood firm, a look of determination on her face. When she stepped forward she drew the attention of the rest of her tribe.   
  
"HalfElven?" Cutter looked at her in concern.   
  
She never took her eyes off Voll. "The time has come to Choose, Vol, firstborn of the High Ones," she announced. "Life or Death, the Choice is yours for you have rendered those who followed you incapable of choosing for themselves. For the theft of choice you stand condemned and a choice is given to you." Her hand shot up and grasped something in midair - and suddenly she was holding a lasso of flame, swinging it around in the air above the heads of her tribe. It slowly descended until the coiled rope touched down and leapt up in a wall of fire encircling the Wolfriders.   
  
HalfElven glared at Voll. "I challenge you! Choose Life which is Death or Death which is Life."   
  
To the end of his days, Voll did not know how he understood the seriousness of her Challenge, but he did. Their stare did not break as he stepped across the line to stand within the circle of flame that leapt up behind him one last time before snuffing out entirely. The burnt ring in the stones would outlast him.   
  
"You have Chosen Life. Accept the consequences."

 

\---

HalfElven prepared herself for possibly the greatest juggling act of her life. If there was a way to change what-must-be, to save a life, then she had to take it. But so much predicated upon that life . . . She couldn't sacrifice all of the intended future. To do so would irrevocably damage the basic weave of this World of Two Moons. And for the sake of a human child ten thousand years yet to be born, she would not damage the world to that extent.   
  
Lord Voll has made his choice, has chosen Life and all its perils, and has remembered an old dream. But he has lived too long on only dreams untempered by any sense of reality. And HalfElven knew that seeking the Palace was a quest that would cost him his life.   
  
Because the Quest was never his to begin with.   
  
"If we survived heat and cold, predators, time and even humans-- why should not the Palace still be there? Come seek it with me, brave Wolfriders! You have the strength and now we have our guide!" Lord Voll issued the words as an invitation. He didn't know. He could not tell.   
  
HalfElven stepped forward. "This isn't your Choice, Lord Voll."   
  
He swung his head around to look at her, at the seriousness of her expression. "What do you mean? Surely you don't think that I would . . ."   
  
"You have made all the decisions for those who follow you for so long that you aren't even aware that no one within these walls really Lives anymore. You have chosen Life, that means letting others have choices of their own. Besides, Cutter's Quest is no one's but his own."   
  
She turned to look at Cutter and gave him a small smile. "This Choice is yours, my chief. To go now or to set the Quest aside for a time or to seek some other option all your own. What time you need, take. You have my support."   
  
Cutter slowly nodded.   
  
*****   
Cutter had come to his decision. He would set the Quest aside for a time, time enough for Ember to grow into a Chieftess who would make her father proud, time for the Wolfriders to recover a sense of who and what they were in the lands that made them, the woods.   
  
Voll was disappointed, and said so. He didn't understand that fate and destiny are just words to those who live by the seasons and the hunt, those who live in the world outside Blue Mountain. Voll came to his decision with reluctance, or so he told himself, but he couldn't quite meet the eyes of the Wolfriders' strange companion who spoke of Choices as if she understood the difference between words and Words.   
  
HalfElven sighed to herself as her tribe was outfitted in new clothing, herself included. Choices made and Choices stolen. Such was the power of fate, such was her own power. So she made a silent vow, stole a Choice for herself. She would act. And somehow, Voll would live.


	9. Book Three Part Four

The Wolfriders were just leaving Blue Mountain when Dewshine's excited Sending drew them away from the freedom they had almost grasped, and pulled them up into the eyries with the ecstatic Gliders, marveling at Voll's renewed bond with the chief of the bondbirds.   
  
His invitation was cunningly phrased, playing upon the Wolfrider's natural lack of subtlety, their natural trust of him and of his ability to let others make choices he may disagree with. But they didn't know Voll the way HalfElven did. She had known for years that this day was coming, not just because she knew the actions that Cutter's Quest would involve, but because she could see the why of those actions. A gift carried in the blood her mother shared with others like her, a gift of the lineage of a girl who dreamed of worlds beyond her own.   
  
Voll was so used to thinking that his will was in someone else's best interest, thinking that he had the right to interfere in other people's choices. HalfElven would save his life this time, if she possibly could, but he would learn a lesson in the process such as he had never learned before. She just hoped that he was strong enough to emerge better from it.   
  
When Voll took off with Cutter and Ember, HalfElven followed them. Dewshine was the first on the ground to notice something was wrong.   
  
Tyldak relayed Cutter's order to the Wolfriders, but in his heart Cutter must have known that they wouldn't stay behind.   
  
_HalfElven! Tell the Wolfriders to go back to the woods!  
  
I can't, my chief, believe me. They have to follow and I have to let them like I let you find Nonna and Adar. Trust me, my chief, we have one chance to avert tragedy, even if it means releasing a part of me that you have never seen, one I hoped you wouldn't have to see._   
  
Cutter considered the half formed images behind her words, a touch of Madcoil-like potential, a hint of Winnowillian darkness. _Would_ _ **you**_ _have done this to us if we had gone to the woods as I wanted?  
  
No, my chief. If Voll hadn't stolen your Quest from you then I would have gone to the woods with the rest of you, but there is another power at play here, and he would not have let his little game sit idle long enough for Ember to grow to take the Chief's lock. Too many pieces have to arrive in place at the right time for all of them for this to work. He's waited too long as it is._   
  
Cutter glared at her and HalfElven could feel it through the Sending connection. _Who? Who are you talking about? Who would try to make me or my tribe do anything?_ _ **Tell me!**_ He was in full alpha mode, with all the authority of chief.   
  
_I can't . . ._ HalfElven paused, and then made up her mind. _Alright, I'll tell you. His name's Two-Edge. He's Winnowill's mad son. He's the one who was taunting you from the shadows in Blue Mountain, the one speaking in riddles and rhymes. He's got this whole love/hate thing going on with Mommie Dearest and he's manipulating both you and what's waiting for you in the north to try to make a decision regarding himself. He's sick and he's twisted but he's brilliant to go with it. If you had actually gone back to the woods he would have fabricated something to force you to go north, ready or not. He and I are going to have a showdown at some point and you're welcome to join in, if you want._   
  
Reluctantly Cutter came to a decision. _Alright, what do you need me to do?  
  
When the moment is right, I'll tell you. Trust me, my chief. _  
  
He heard the unspoken emotion, knew the truth of it as he knew his own soul. There is only truth in Sending, and he chose to trust the love in HalfElven's heart.   
  
*****   
Aroree's plea for understanding fell on deaf ears.   
  
"Not if it costs my friends' lives!" Skywise shouted at her. "You abducted them—without a single thought for their safety!"   
  
"Wrong!" Tyldak exclaimed. "Voll wants only what is best for all of us! He is our lord, our 'chief' – a much greater chief than yours! Had only you followed Voll when he asked, this would not have been necessary."   
  
_NECESSARY?????_ HalfElven's voice rang out in all their minds, the Sending painfully clear and wide open. _Since when did Voll really understand what is Necessary???!!!! Is he a Greater Seer? To See the paths of What Will Be? What Must Be? And What May Be? Or is he simply a spoiled child who has not had his will challenged in so long that he has forgotten that others are not mere toys to be moved at his pleasure!!!!!_   
  
Strongbow blinked. There were levels to her Sending that he was touching that had to be Sent for other purposes. From her perch on Darktumble's shoulders, the little lizardling Citaya winked at him. _You aren't the only ones who can hear her._   
  
Voll's Sending cut across all of them. _My Children, you must see and know what it is that I offer you!_ He showed them his heart's image of the Palace, a homeplace above all homeplaces, a refuge for those who are hunted and lost.   
  
None of them, Wolfrider or Glider, were prepared for HalfElven's fury. The images she Sent were graphic and tragic. The homeplace despoiled, the refuge destroyed, love betrayed and blood running like rivers. Power could not save them, magic was no defense. They were caught unawares and unprotected and they were slaughtered in their own home, in their own beds, beside mates and children. Assassins targeted the females, the lifebearers, to try to wipe out the very bloodlines they carried.   
  
For a moment everyone reeled in the sheer grief and terror of HalfElven's mind. Only Strongbow was able to maintain a sense of himself in the morass of emotion, he'd seen this before. He Sent as loudly as he could, like a slap in the face. _HalfElven! Enough! Let us go!_   
  
Abruptly the Sending broke and HalfElven stumbled into the midst of her tribe, sobbing with reawakened grief.   
  
From the mountaintop Cutter blinked as he understood something of what HalfElven had suffered. "Two-Spear's madness!" he breathed. "A third of them at once? How did she survive it? If humans had ever . . ." He looked over at Leetah and then looked down at their cubs. If humans had ever entered the Holt to kill his lifemate and his cubs, then he would fear the safety of a homeplace too.   
  
_HalfElven, I . . ._ Words failed him and all he could send were emotions. And a promise. She would never have to suffer a shattered home again. Her home was with them. She was a Wolfrider.   
  
Voll was stunned at the open agony in the Sending. He had never dreamed that a homeplace could hold that much pain, that much fear. For a moment he considered his own quest for the home of his parents. _I will not let it happen to you again, I swear it._   
  
HalfElven heard Voll's vow and was silent for a moment, but only a moment. Her mind's voice was still, broken, but appreciative of his efforts, and carrying a touch of humor. _Don't make promises you can't keep._   
  
*****   
The Wolfriders no longer fought the journey north, but they were more cautious in the aftermath of HalfElven's breakdown. Each one taking turns to ride beside her, to touch her mind with theirs, to share their sense of family and to include her in it. Most often it was Skywise on one side and Strongbow on the other, with Nightfall right behind.   
  
The closer they got to the northern mountains, the more HalfElven started to stir. She watched the land around them with greater and greater unease, and her unease was shared by the tribe. By now they could sense that she was waiting for something, that something was waiting for them up ahead.   
  
They were half-expecting it when HalfElven launched herself into the air as they were just reaching the mountainous barrier.   
  
_Cutter.  
  
I hear you. What is it?_ He could feel her watching the mountain, and listening, strangely listening.   
  
_When I shout out, I want you to knock Voll in the head. Knock him cold.  
  
But the bird . . .   
  
I know, I know. Trust me. Leave Voll to me, wrap your arms around Ember and the pup and protect them._ He could feel her expectation like a subterranean ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. Then suddenly, release. _NOW, CUTTER!_   
  
Cutter clenched his fists into one and hit Voll in the back of the head. The ancient glider crumpled like an old leaf as the giant bird they flew suddenly backwinged, throwing his riders into the air before being impaled on a huge spear. Cutter's mind boggled. If they had still been on the bird . . .   
  
HalfElven was above them in a moment and caught another spear in midair before it could impale Voll as he fell. A quick movement of her hand and Cutter felt a force like a giant hand below him, cushioning his fall as he sheltered his daughter and her pup-friend in his arms, taking the force of their landing with his back and then rolling with them. Voll landed not far from them, but wasn't awake to compensate for the impact. Still, HalfElven must have done something, because he didn't bounce, and his body wasn't crumpled and bleeding the way he would be expected to be after a fall of that distance.   
  
The Chosen Eight dove towards Voll, but were rudely flung away by a rough force. HalfElven landed to stand right above Voll. She bent to place her hand gently at his throat, and felt the pulsing life there. Good. He'd survived the fall. He'd feel the bruises in the morning, but at least he was still alive. For now. She straightened and directed her thought outwards, so that anyone who could hear her would hear her.   
  
_He wanted the Palace, so help me, he's going to see it. And not with spirit eyes, either. Voll is going to learn that actions have consequences and that dreams have costs, costs that he was willing to have other people pay, costs of blood and pain and heartbreak. But as my name is Destiny Dreamsail, this time he is going to share in those costs!_   
  
She glanced over at the Chosen Eight, who once again approached to carry off Voll. A smirk touched her lips. They didn't understand. She wasn't limited anymore. She was still HalfElven, but now she was more than simply the strangeling Wolfrider adoptive. _I don't think so._ She didn't even motion, just flung them away with the power of her mind. The Wolfriders were staggered. How much magic did HalfElven have? _Go back to Lord Winnowill and tell her that Voll lives. Voll lives because I have acted against myself, and will continue to live as long as I am able to keep him that way. But make sure you tell her that I have not done this for her. A day of reckoning is coming for her when the voices of the unborn dead of Blue Mountain will have the vengeance they cry out for, when the unlived lives she took will be answered for. And make sure you tell her that it's_ _ **HER OWN FAULT!!!!**_   
  
The Gliders fled HalfElven's fury even as she turned from them towards the lumbering shadows coming towards the Wolfrider band. _Prepare for battle, my people, the Trolls are coming._

 

\---

As the Gliders retreated from the soon-to-be-battlefield the heard HalfElven Send a final challenge. _Or, you can choose to stay - stay and fight for the Lord you chose and his dream of the home of the High Ones._   
  
Immediately Tyldak turned, and took a crossbow bolt to his wing membrane. One of the other Gliders grabbed him and pulled him away. Aroree and Kureel turned and joined the wolfriders as Strongbow took down one of the trolls. The others flew off, taking Tyldak with them.   
  
Cutter sized up the opposition quickly. _Actually, HalfElven, the wiser option might be . . ._   
  
HalfElven sent him a mental shrug. _If you think all of us can get away . . ._   
  
He Sent the command and HalfElven lifted the unconscious Voll onto Darktumble. They didn't get far, though, when a troll grabbed a wolf's leg, snapping it and then tried to choke Scouter.   
  
If all couldn't escape then none could and the battle was on, vicious, bloody, and ultimately hopeless.   
  
HalfElven materialized a crossbow out of thin air as she reached around to point it at an incoming troll. A deep thwang and a crossbow bolt buried itself deep in the troll's eyesocket. She paused to look around as a mechanism at the top of the crossbow quickly loaded another bolt for her. Kureel looked at the device, stunned.   
  
"Where did that come from?"   
  
"I made it up. Now, are you going to kill that troll before he splatters Voll's brains over the snow, or am I?"   
  
Kureel snarled at her as he turned and threw his talon whip to defend his unconscious lord.   
  
The clamor of battle woke Voll, who looked around at a scene of grotesque mayhem. "What is going on here?"   
  
"What you would have missed if that ballista had killed you. Did you really think you could fly right up to the Palace and walk in, just as easy as that?" HalfElven paused long enough to point her weapon at a troll about to clobber Dewshine. The bolt buried itself in the troll's midsection to the sound of screaming agony. "Damn, gutshot, that is no way for anything to go." HalfElven turned back to Voll as Dewshine's wolf tore out the troll's throat. "The path to the Palace will be washed in blood and some of it will be shed by elves."   
  
Voll was about to reply when HalfElven suddenly grabbed her side in pain. _CUTTER!!_ Across the field Cutter was pinned on a troll spear. Even Voll cried out in horror. Not the wolf chief. Voll never wanted this. And in his heart, Voll could not evade his own responsibility. All this . . . was his fault.   
  
Still bent over from shared pain, HalfElven turned to level her weapon at a troll about to strike at One-Eye's blind side. She squeezed. The bolt fired. Chest shot, in the heart, the troll was as good as dead. But even trolls have adrenalin, the mace fell, and so did One-Eye.   
  
Pain exploded around HalfElven as she telekinetically sent trolls flying.   
  
Rescuers were on their way, though, including one very unexpected ally. A stag and rider grabbed the unconscious Cutter even as another pulled up Clearbrook beside her. "Alive is better!" Indeed.   
  
HalfElven collapsed, dropping the crossbow into the snow where it dematerialized into smoke, and Voll was able to return the favor by carrying her in his own arms as they retreated with these strange snow elves.


	10. Book Four Part One

(Battle’s Aftermath)

Hoofbeats pounded into the distance as the Go-Back stags escaped the battlefield with Go-Backs, Wolfriders, and three stunned Gliders.  Forgotten on the field a small mound of snow quivered and then shuddered aside as a crumpled Petalwing emerged beside the fallen One-Eye.  It looked at the severed braid of Clearbrook’s silver hair, absently fondling the soft locks. “Silversoft highthing try make wrapstuff?”

Wrapstuff Petalwing could understand.  The symbolic message of cutting her hair as a grief-offering was beyond Petalwing’s capabilities.  Not such a bad thing in the end. Preservers aren’t elves, and it’s okay to be nothing more or less than what you are.  Elves can’t make wrapstuff, but Preservers can.

So Petalwing honored Clearbrook’s grief-offering in the only way it could.  It made wrapstuff for her. And it included Clearbrook’s “wrapstuff” with One-Eye in his cocoon.

 

*****

Watching the tiny preserver, the troll-elf Two-Edge, master smith and master riddler, considered the developments in his grand game.  Voll was supposed to die, felled with the same spear that killed his bird. His death was to make the Gliders flee, leave the wolfchief without their magic in the coming clash.  Now Voll lived and two of his Gliders stayed with him.

All because of the strangeling elf-maid.

Two-Edge remembered her from Blue Mountain.  He had watched her as he had watched all the wolfling elves.  She had never showed such power there, near his mother, curse her black heart.  She was stronger than his mother, more magic lived inside her. Could she have simply killed all the trolls that threatened them?  Used her magic to break the mountain in two and walk through to the Palace?

He would have to study this one, listen closely and decide if he could use her in his plans, or if he had to remove her.

 

*****

Farther away from the battlefield than the warmth of Sorrow’s End, a figure sat in meditative contemplation.  He was a hunter, of sorts, dedicated to tracking his prey using every means at his disposal. The ends justify the means, and he sought nothing less than extermination.  His soul was twisted, he believed beyond repair, by what he had done, the terrible crimes he had committed.

Kinslayer.

A silent alarm went off in the emptiness of his soul, and his mind was drawn to the World of Two Moons, the world of Elfquest.  No one had gone to that former playground in a very long time. He had almost stopped looking there. But now a thread of telepathic energy accompanied by a most unique energy signature escaped  _...as my name is Destiny Dreamsail…  _

He smiled, lupine eyes opening.  “Well, little sister, it has been a very long time indeed.”

 

*****

Cutter woke momentarily as they arrived at the camp, sliding from the top of the stag into Skywise’s arms.  “Leetah!! Where are you?” Skywise called out.

“I’m coming!”  Leetah returned, sliding down from her own rescuer’s stag and running over to them.

Kahvi didn’t think much of healers, but the devotion of family was stronger than she.  They could use her furs. They were no strangers to the blood of warriors.

Voll still carried HalfElven in his arms.  He could almost feel Kureel’s anger, at the Wolfriders, at the trolls, as these new Elves and their rough attitudes and seeming distrust of the magic that was central to Blue Mountain.  Being honest, Voll couldn’t fault him his anger. These elves did seem to reject everything that stood at the heart of the haven he had worked to build.

But when he entered the lodge and saw the sheer number of younglings among the stranger elves, he had to ask himself just who was wrong, because he wasn’t so sure anymore.

He found a quiet corner, out of anyone’s way, and sat down.  Kureel knelt nearby, as if shielding him from the rest of the elves, while Aroree simply collapsed, almost beyond anymore tears.  She had never seen an elf die, had never seen an elf’s blood spill. Now the light that Skywise had lit in her eyes was gone, and not even Skywise could bring it back, his attention was on saving his friend and chief.  Voll could not fault his devotion.

Still HalfElven slept.

Still Voll held her, and wondered as new thoughts ran through his mind, questioning ideals left unquestioned for thousands of years.

A howl of agony split the air, given voice by the Wolfrider.  His tribemates shuttered in sympathy, but the snow elves merely shrugged.  Kureel growled, a strangely wolfrider-ish sound.  _ They are vermin, Lord Voll!  How can these . . . these creatures be elves like us? _

Voll sighed.   _ Like us?  No, Kureel, they are not like us, and yet they are elves.  Elves who have learned to survive in the world we abandoned. _

_ If this is the fate that awaited those who chose not to follow you, then you were wise beyond even your parents to seal away the world from us.  They have forgotten what it means to be elves! _

Voll looked up at Kureel, a strange expression on his face.   _ Was I?  Have they? _

Kureel was stunned into silence.  And still HalfElven slept.

Leetah emerged, dazed, exhausted, to see to the hurts of the rest of the two tribes and to reassure the Wolfriders that their chief would live.  She leaned on the arm of one of the snow-elves, who apparently wasn’t a snow elf at all. His skin was dark as the healer’s and his aura wasn’t at all like the others.

Even Kureel grunted in reluctant admiration.   _ That one’s no barbarian. _

When Leetah approached them, Voll smiled at her.  “She only sleeps, Healer, I think we can allow her this much, at least.”

Slowly the healer nodded.

Later Leetah could no longer resist her own need for rest and the strange dark elf carried her back to sleep beside her lifemate.

And still HalfElven slept in Voll’s arms.

 

\--- --- ---

Kahvi came marching up to Voll as the sun started to rise on the second day since the Wolfriders' rescue, the third of HalfElven's slumber.  "Is she still asleep?" The question was asked in the sharp, clipped voice of a leader with little patience for anything.

Voll nodded.  "My own need for rest in so minor as to not exist.  Sleep, and dreams, are a luxury to me. But this- this is not natural."  He didn't need to say that he had sat guardian over her the entire time as Wolfriders and the occasional curious Go-Back stopped by to touch her shoulder or poke her arm.

"From what I hear, she'd be quite the warrior if she'd just wake up."

"She saved my life and I fear that now she pays the price for it."

Kahvi snorted and walked off.

 

****

Rayek watched them from the side of the lodge.  He barely remembered the maiden from the Wolfrider's arrival in Sorrow's End, but since he had helped save them, the Wolfriders had told him plenty about her, about her magic.

He had worked himself past exhaustion to expand his gifts and reclaim abilities long thought lost.  And he was not yet done learning. There was still so much he could not do.

In a moment HalfElven had unleashed more power, more magic, then he had seen in a lifetime.  If he could learn from her… As much as Leetah, here was a maiden strong enough, gifted enough, to be his equal.  And she had used her power to save a near High One, a Firstborn.

If she would just wake… 

He walked over to where Voll sat with HalfElven.  The sullen Glider, Kureel, give him a brief nod of respect.  The female, Aroree, was still curled in on herself, despite Skywise's best attempts to draw her out.  Rayek knelt next to HalfElven and reached out to touch her arm. Magic was racing through her in torrents like he had never sensed before.  He almost didn't notice young Suntop appear at his shoulder.

"Is she ready to wake up yet?"  The child sounded slightly worried as he patted the winged lizard draped across his shoulders.

"What do you mean?" Voll asked.

"She's doing something.  That's why she's still asleep.  Citaya's worried, though. She keeps talking about ‘overcompensation', whatever that means."

"Maybe we should wake her, then."  Rayek started to tighten his hand on HalfElven's arm, preparing to take hold of it.

"It's okay.  I think she's done."

Just then, HalfElven took a deep breath and stirred.  She blinked her eyes several times and struggled to focus her eyes.  "Voll?" She turned her head. "Suntop?" Then she looked over more. "Rayek.  So you did survive. With all I have changed . . . I was afraid . . ."

For a moment Rayek felt an unfamiliar emotion in his heart.  That she had worried about him, had thought about him… it warmed him more than he would have expected.

Voll helped her sit up.  "Are you well?"

"Well enough, for now."  She took a deep breath. "Where's Cutter?  I need to talk to my chief. Tell him what I've done.  And why." She closed her eyes and a few tears leaked out.

"What  have you done?" Rayek asked.

"Sealed off my magic.  Most of it anyways."

 

\---

"You did what?"  Kahvi was incredulous.  "You threw away a weapon . . ."

"You would do the same thing, if that weapon became a threat."  HalfElven stood firm under Kahvi's furious gaze.

Cutter was just as confused and uncomprehending; his style was just a bit different.  "Why, HalfElven?"

"I'm hunted.  One of our own, a Traveler, a brother, turned traitor on the rest of us.  Throwing that much power around is a surefire way to get noticed. I'm praying he didn't catch anything and that if I lay low for a while that he won't find me."

Reluctantly Cutter nodded once.  "I don't like it, but I can't fault you.  What happens if he finds you anyways?"

"Under other circumstances, I'd run.  Take off across the worlds until he lost me.  But I'm past the point when that would have been an option.  Leaving now would leave you vulnerable and I care too much. For better or worse, I'm a Wolfrider now, my chief, and I can't abandon my tribe."

"So you would stand and fight?"

A grin broke across Kahvi's face and HalfElven nodded slowly.  "My powers will unseal. I dare not be without them long. I would stand and do everything within my power to ensure the Wolfrider's survival and, by extension, the survival of every elf tribe on the face of this planet."

"But not yours."  Up to now, Rayek had watched silently.

"I'm not looking to die.  There are things that I must still do.  But there's a set of triplets who can do what I do when they work together so I suppose I'm expendable."  She carefully met his eyes. "Sometimes the good of the many outweighs the good of the one. Sometimes it doesn't, but sometimes it does."

After a moment, Rayek turned away, troubled.

 

\---

Rayek found her later, putting up weapons after a sparring match.  "I still do not fully understand. Why would you willingly limit yourself this way?  You could do so much and yet you do not."

HalfElven sighed, mostly at herself.  Even when she wasn't trying, she changed things.  "Yes, I could. I have enough power at my disposal that I could make any accomplishment of yours seem insignificant, worthless.  I could overshadow you to the point that you would just give up and wither away and everything you have ever done would be lost and forgotten.  I could destroy you in ways that make death look like nothing." She threw a shield onto a stack of them. "But just because I can do something doesn't mean that I should.  Your power, your accomplishments, might not be as great as mine, but that doesn't mean that they are less, either. I was born with my powers. You have worked for yours. And I can appreciate the effort you put into them.  I value your gifts as something mine are not." She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Sometimes limits give us the only freedom we have." She turned back to the shields.

Rayek was stunned.  Such alien concepts – lesser powers having greater value, the choice to embrace limitation.  His next words tumbled from his mouth in a rush. "Please, teach me." She looked back at him, her eyes wide.  "I realize that it would be difficult, with your powers sealed, but please, teach me to Travel."

HalfElven turned and abruptly sat on a bench as her legs gave way beneath her.  "Oh God, Rayek, I almost wish I dared. You have the potential, it would be so easy to awaken it… But there is something that you will do, something that only you can do, for the good of all elves everywhere.  You will sacrifice yourself so that others can sleep peacefully in ignorance of just how much you have done for them. When that day comes you will understand why I dare not allow the one held prisoner within you to have access to Traveler powers."  She was silent a moment, then pushed herself off the bench and ran, unable to face the grief in Rayek's eyes.

 

\---

Much later Rayek looked up from something to see the winged lizardling land on a fur across from him.  The creature met his eyes.  _ My friend told me to tell you that if you are still willing to learn that I can teach you to expand your Sending skills.  It will take hard work and effort, though. _

Rayek smiled.  Easy was never his style, anyways.


	11. Book Four Part Two

HalfElven watched Cutter walk away from the camp with a sigh.  She barely noticed Rayek following the wolf-chief to the hill. Her attention was caught, instead, by Kahvi and Leetah.  Kahvi didn't think highly of Leetah's intervention.

"A close brush with death can change an elf for the better." She said. "But to be kept from death when it's his time…?  Hunh! Who knows how that could twist his insides?"

Leetah didn't need Kahvi's lecture.  She was more than willing to meet the chieftess on her own terms.  "I've changed. I've even killed. But death will always be my enemy!  I will always fight it… as fiercely as you battle Trolls!"

HalfElven sighed.  "It wasn't his time."

Both females looked at her.  On the hill over them Rayek and Cutter spoke in a confrontation of their own.  "It wasn't Cutter's time, Kahvi. Leetah has not done anything to disrupt the flow of what is intended, what must be."

Kahvi lifted an eyebrow.  "Oh really?" Her voice spoke volumes of sarcasm and skepticism.  "You know this how?"

HalfElven sighed again.  "Because of my powers, because of what I know, what I have seen.  Even without my foresight, this world is written into my blood. Leetah… "  she looked over at the dark-skinned healer for a moment in sympathy, almost, "Leetah is going to have enough problems on her hands without you razzing her for something she hasn't done.  If you want to rake someone over the coals for keeping a man from his proper death, then turn on me. Voll was the one fated to die in that battle, not Cutter." She turned to meet Kahvi's eyes.  "You might not trust magic, but it is nothing more than a tool, like any other, and it can be used or misused at the will of the one who wields it. Can you honestly tell me that your insistence on denying the magic that makes you elves hasn't weakened your tribe?  Made you more vulnerable?"

Kahvi stiffened at the remark.  "How dare you?"

"You breed quickly without Recognition, well, quickly for elves, but without quality.  With every succeeding generation you lose a little more of what it means to be elves and without magic you will never recover your souls.  Without a past you have no future. You change so much that you do not change at all. Talk to Voll about what it does to a people when they do not change.  I dare you."

Leetah took the moment of stillness in response to HalfElven's words to interrupt and try to redirect the conversation away from confrontation.  "If you knew that it was his time, why did you intervene for Lord Voll?"

HalfElven looked away from Kahvi and towards Leetah.  "He was worth it. A life is always worth it, but he has the potential to influence many.  If he can learn and change then he can become better, and elves the world over can rejoice in him.  And maybe,” she paused for half a breath and then pushed forward, “maybe if he is strong enough to look honestly at his own faults then he can save many more lives.  And maybe someday I can look into the eyes of his children." She was about to say something more when she was distracted by something on the hillside above them. "Excuse me, there's a halfbreed I need to yell at for a moment."

 

*****

HalfElven reached Cutter and Rayek in time to see the snow beneath their feet drop, to see Cutter fall and Rayek float.  She screamed in anger. "Two-Edge! I know you can hear me, you mad halfling! Face me!" The only answer was the buzzing of wings as Petalwing shot out of the hiding place and down towards Cutter.  HalfElven growled. "Two-Edge, mark my words! I don't intend to walk around you, but I certainly can. You and I are going to meet face to face and then you are going to have a choice to make! And you can't use anyone else to make that choice for you!"

The wind whistled around them and somehow she knew that Two-Edge was gone.  She fell to her knees beside the hole, wishing that she hadn't sealed her flight along with her other powers.  Ember was facing off with Rayek, demanding that he help her father. Suntop's plea had more effect than his sister's ire.  "Please," the boy asked gently, "because you love Mother?"

It worked and Rayek disappeared down the hole, floating himself telekinetically.  Just then Kahvi and Leetah appeared, having followed HalfElven in the wake of Ember's shout.  When Rayek and Cutter reappeared, they were waiting for them . . . and Ember got the snowball down her collar that she so richly deserved.

 

\--- --- ---

Voll stood outside the lodge as the commotion eased and the elves returned.  The light was starting to fade outside and soon all would gather inside the building for the night.  The old one's eyes sought first the young wolf-chief and the dark-haired warrior, then the rough snow-chieftess, and then he looked at HalfElven.  He could read her face easily, she was as open as the Wolfriders who had adopted her, and whom she had adopted, and the strength of her life was a shock, though something in his heart wondered if maybe her eyes were a touch more tired than they were, if she carried a touch of pain in the paleness of her face.  HalfElven was angry, and sorrowful, and determined to carry something through, though Voll wasn't certain what it was.

He heard a sound beside him.  Kureel stood next to him and looked at the returning elves with ill-concealed distaste.  He bit back some comment about "mongrels" before returning to the darkness of the lodge and Aroree's continued reticence.  Voll sighed in sorrow. He couldn't blame his Chosen's anger and resentment. He wanted to share it. He wanted to remain aloof and secure in the belief that his way was the right way, that he and his were the true children of the High Ones.

He just wasn't certain anymore.

That night there was a council, and the tale of war and woe was quickly told.

The Go-Backs were at war with the Trolls, who barred their way back to the Palace, even as the Palace called and called to the lost children of the High Ones.  It tugged on Suntop, and Voll had to smile at the fearless face of the young mystic boy. He felt the tug too.

Kahvi wanted to slaughter the Trolls.  The Wolfriders tried to think of ways to avoid that necessity.  Skywise suggested flying over the mountain, though his eyes were darkened with sorrow as he looked at Aroree, who had only now begun to respond to the sounds around her.  Rayek could float, but he wasn't strong enough to carry anyone over the mountain.

HalfElven sighed.  "It doesn't matter how strong you are, Rayek, the halfblood won't allow the elves to circumvent his plans.  Two-Edge wants you to go through the mountain, not over, not around, and if you try then more will stand in risk of being killed."

Voll looked at her for a moment in confusion.  "Who is this Two-Edge?"

HalfElven stiffened for a moment in surprise and then closed her eyes in momentary pain.  "This is going to be bad, Voll, if you can take the explanation." She sighed. "Two-Edge is a madman, half elf, half troll, but it's not his blood that unhinges his mind."  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to look Voll in the face. "His mother broke his mind through abuse and cruelty."

Kahvi snorted.  "Trust a troll… "

HalfElven interrupted her sharply.  "His mother wasn't the troll." She turned back to Voll.  "She was a snake, the Black Snake, Winnowill."

Voll shook his head in denial.  "No, no that cannot be. Winnowill, my Winnowill would never be so . . . She would never harm anyone."  He tried to look away from HalfElven, but was caught by her eyes. He remembered all that Winnowill had done before he had flown from Blue Mountain, all that she had done to keep him half-asleep and peaceful in the deathless mountain.  She wasn't the Winnowill he remembered any longer, but some part of his heart didn't want to believe that she had sunk so low that there was no calling her back. He still remembered the innocence of their young love, the joy they found in the early days of the Mountain and their safety.  "No, this cannot be… "

HalfElven looked too genuinely sorrowful to be deceiving him.  "I hate that I am the bearer of this news, but when she vanished from the Mountain for those years, before she returned to you, changed, she found an injured Troll in the bowels of the Mountain.  He needed her, Voll, in ways that you no longer did. She did not think she could conceive, but she did, and Two-Edge is her son. All she taught him was cruelty and mind-games and so that is all he knows."

Voll turned away from her, a tear leaving a shining trail down his face.  "I asked her… "

"I know."  There were unshed tears in HalfElven's voice.  "She refused you, though she had the power to cause such a blessing."  She took a deep breath and looked at the rest of the room, leaving Voll to his pain in silence.  "I mean to deal with Two-Edge, one way or the other. He wants us to go through the mountain, and he will find a way to force us to his will."

Cutter frowned.  "He's crazy, and he's got a scheme that I can't figure out."

Kahvi didn't need to hear anything more than that.  "Crazy or not, friend or foe, he'll get us into Guttlecraw's tunnels.  The rest we can deal with. Isn't that so?" There was a resounding shout of agreement from the Go-Backs and Kahvi turned to Cutter.  "Well, Wolf Chief? Do we join forces?"

Cutter looked at his tribe for a moment.  "War… it's nothing new. It's what we used to have with the humans, though we didn't know the word.  You didn't mind it when Bearclaw led you against the Tall Ones – because 'The Way' was all you knew. Well, Bearclaw is dead and the Wolfriders and 'the Way' are part of something much bigger!  Follow me, and like my father, I'll lead you into battle. But not for the old reasons – survival, territory, revenge. We'll be fighting for the birth-home of our race – where we'll find our beginnings and, High Ones willing, an end to the quest."

Even Kureel blinked in momentary surprise at Cutter.   _ Maybe there is some elf in the lad after all. _

The Wolfriders agreed to follow their chief and drums began to pound a furious rhythm in anticipation of battle the next day.  "Before we spill our blood in battle," one Go-Back called out, "let's feel it pound in our veins!"

"Dance!" Kahvi commanded, "Dance warriors!  Life gets no sweeter than this!!"

The cubs climbed to an upstairs room, the dance and what would follow was for warriors who would fight and maybe die.  HalfElven watched the dancing become something else and skirted the edge as she walked around the lodge to where Aroree still sat, curled in on herself.  Kureel looked at her in surprise.  _ You do not… ? _

She shook her head.   _ No, I do not.  I will look after Aroree, though, if you wish to join in. _

He looked confused for a moment before he bowed slightly and stood aside.

HalfElven sat down next to Aroree and pulled the trembling elf maiden into her arms, as a mother would hold a frightened child.

The next morning preparations were made for the warriors to leave.  Staying with the cubs was Redlance . . . and Aroree. She did not wish to be near to the death of another elf and so permission was quickly given for her to stay with the cubs and the wolves.

HalfElven quietly sent a warning to Darktumble as she gathered her things to keep a tight eye on the place, that the Trolls were treacherous.  Darktumble responded that she knew humans and that Trolls could not be so different.

HalfElven knew, more than anyone else, what awaited those who stayed in the lodge and she prayed that it would help Aroree wake from her fear, if it didn't drive her into complete catatonia.


	12. Book Four Part Three

The trolls weren't expecting there to be so many of them.  The slaughter, though, disgusted Voll. He turned his head away as the Go-Backs killed the wounded trolls.  "Is this truly necessary?" He caught sight of HalfElven's eyes as she stood towards the back of the joined army with one hand resting on the head of one of the wolves they had set free from the pit.  She was absently scratching behind the female's ears as she dug in a pouch for a bit of dried meat and offered it gently. As Voll watched, the wolf accepted the offering.

He frowned a moment, puzzled, as the army began to make their way through the tunnels.  "HalfElven?"

She sighed.  "She won't scavenge.  I don't blame her. But I can't stand to see any living creature go hungry.  If you're going to kill something, then kill it and be done. Starvation, in any form, is a cruelty I cannot abide."  She turned her attention inwards as she switched modes of speech. Some reprimands were not for the entertainment of others.   _ You starved Blue Mountain. _

Voll stiffened at the accusation.   _ I never!  I would never have allowed any of my people to go hungry! _

HalfElven sighed.   _ You starved Winnowill, forced her to seek other methods to fill the ache that you would not.  What good is a healer in a place that does not need healing? She had nothing to do, no purpose in your barren Mountain.  No room for more life so she could not aid in bringing it into the world. She turned in on herself for sustenance and it drove her mad.  Her choices are her own, but you made her make those choices when you refused to see that safety was a greater danger than what lay outside the Mountain. _

Voll tried to deny her words, tried to believe that he had been right in what he had done, but there is only truth in Sending and he could feel her truth bearing down on him like the weight of the Mountain itself.  Winnowill had tried to make him see, but he had refused, and now… now she might be lost to him because of it.

_ Is there any way to save her? _  Voll still loved her, even after all this time, even after all she had done.  He remembered the days of their youth and he still loved her.

HalfElven shrugged.   _ To be honest, I'm not certain.  I cannot consult the Loom so I cannot trace the path of what could be to see the possibilities, but I know that saving her would take a great many lifetimes of mountains.  She has not fallen as far as she is determined to go and she might be redeemed to another man's love. Are you willing to surrender her? _

Voll thought for a moment.   _ She is my lovemate, still.  If she can be saved, if she can be healed, I would wish it. _  He sighed.   _ Even if she never loves me again. _  The words hurt in his thought.  It hurt him to even think that he might have lost the love and support of the one person who always understood him.  She always understood him, always knew what he needed, even before he did. Had he ever understood her? Had he ever really asked what she needed?  A single tear tracked down his face.

Kahvi glanced back at them and grimaced.  "Soppy eyed elders!" She muttered the words beneath her breath.  Between the lily-livered healer and these bird-elves who couldn't even change their own napkins without help… she really needed a good battle to settle her nerves.  Hopefully the scouts had been an appetizer because she was more than ready for the main course.

The sight, though, of the pit and the activity there stilled them all for a time as they considered the possibilities for crossing.  Cutter glanced at HalfElven.  _ There was a time that you could move…  _

She shook her head regretfully.   _ The ability isn't completely sealed away; the closer I get to the Palace the more the gifts unlock, but trying to use it could kill me. _  There was a muffled gasp from Leetah as she caught the edge of the conversation.  HalfElven wasn't locking down the Sending after all.  _ If I might make a suggestion, though, some of those trolls are old friends and they aren't too happy to be slaves. _

Cutter nodded his understanding.

Once Picknose understood that Cutter truly was there to defeat Guttlecraw, and not to slip a knife between his ribs while he had the chance, he was more than willing to assist the elves in crossing the pit, and taking out the guards in the process.

The crossing, though, was costly in more ways than one.

Vaya dove for the safety of the hole Ekuar had opened in the stone slab door.  She caught Pike's hands, but the trolls caught her ankles. HalfElven started forward to help pull her through when a troll spear pierced Pike's shoulder and he lost his grip.  HalfElven met Vaya's gaze as she was pulled away and was stunned immobile by the sudden sound of phantasmal cub laughter.

Mother's strength.  Father's humor. Go-Back pride.  Wolfrider heart. HalfElven must have screamed aloud.  Her throat was raw as she clawed at the unforgiving stone that Ekuar had closed up around an unfortunate ( *snort* ) troll.  Someone grabbed hold of her, from the height it must have been Voll, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, letting her beat her fists on his chest.

"She's gone, HalfElven."  His voice was impossibly sad.

"They're going to kill her!  Those trolls are going to kill her!"

Kahvi stepped up.  "We'll dance for her.  When the Palace is ours, we'll dance for her."

HalfElven turned her head to look Kahvi in the eyes, letting her see the tears streaking down her face.  "You don't understand! Vaya's not just Vaya anymore."

Kahvi's face went impossibly still.  "What do you mean?"

"Vaya and Pike are going to have a cub.  Vaya's carrying a fawn."

"How do you know that?"  Cutter wore the full mantle of chief, one HalfElven had willingly chosen to follow.

"I saw her.  Behind Vaya's eyes.  I heard her laughter.  She's beautiful." A sob tore loose from HalfElven's throat.  "I can't let her die too!"

"But we can't rescue her, HalfElven."  Cutter's voice was sad, and firm.

HalfElven pushed herself from Voll's arms.  "I can Jump to her and Jump back."

Leetah gasped in surprise.  "No, you can't." She cried out.  "It'd kill you."

"Don't you think I know that?  I locked down my powers for a reason, and a very good one at that, but right now a life hangs in the balance, and I need to try."  HalfElven met Kahvi's eyes, and was gratified to see the chieftess nod. She looked over at Pike, who was still stunned. With tears in his eyes, he nodded.  She looked last at Cutter, her chief. "Please, let me try."

For a long moment, Cutter was silent.  "If you fail, we could lose both of you."  HalfElven didn't have an answer for him. Finally he nodded.  "Just don't fail."

Quickly HalfElven began unbuckling her sword belt, removing anything extra that she could spare.  "Leetah, be ready. When I get back with her we may both be at death's door. Focus on her first."  She took a deep breath, preparing. "Here goes." HalfElven vanished.

 

\--- --- ---

Once again Vaya closed her mind to Pike's frantic Sending.  They had shared a dance, and one glorious moment of unspoken understanding, a moment she treasured dearly, but she was not willing to share this with him.  She knew what awaited her in the Troll king’s chamber, and it was not going to be pleasant. She wanted to shelter the Wolfrider from the pain and the horror.

If only he would leave her alone to die.

Vaya could see Guttlecraw's face, see his disgusting expression as he offered the questionable mercy of a swift death in exchange for information, for treason against her people, her Chieftess.  She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of breaking her.

She didn't want to die.  Only the High Ones knew how much she didn't want to die.  She enjoyed life too strongly, reveled in the moment too joyfully.  But more than that, she didn't want to die badly, a shame to her mother, to her people.  She wanted to die on her own terms since she could not see any path but death to the Palace of her ancestors.

She grabbed a guard's dagger and leapt forward, slashing at Guttlecraw's face.  She saw the blood streaking down his cheek and smiled to know that she had marked him even as the guards pulled her back and thrust down with their spears into her body.

It wasn't as difficult as she had thought it would be, dying.  She had suffered worse hurt from lesser wounds. She felt light and the pain of her body a distant thing as she saw a brightness that eclipsed even the sunniest day of her memory.  She smiled. She could see the Palace growing brighter and she could feel the welcome and the eager acceptance she would receive there.

This was Home.  This was Comfort and Rest and Joy such as she had never known all her days.  She could see faces looking out at her from the walls of the Palace, and one small shape jumping for joy and clapping small hands.

Her son.  Her son awaited her in the Palace.

He had been born too small, too weak, and though she had struggled to keep him warm, the tiny fawn had died barely a turn after he had been born.

She had never stopped missing him.

Vaya found her soul shouting out with a Wolfrider howl of greeting as she rushed towards the Palace and her tiny son.

 

****

HalfElven felt like her muscles were on fire as she pushed herself towards the Troll king's throne room and Vaya, who was already slipping beyond reach.  She prayed, desperately prayed, that she would reach the elf maiden in time, and that she wouldn't die in the process, taking all three of them beyond recall.

She couldn't fail.  Her chief had told her not to fail.

Almost there . . .

 

****

Guttlecraw looked at Vaya's smiling face in disbelief.  What did it take to kill one of these elf-vermin?

Then a wind rushed through the chamber and he dropped the elf in surprise as he backed up.  When the wind was gone he looked back and saw that the elf was gone as well, and only a pool of her blood left to show that she had ever been there, and the gash down his cheek.

 

****

Vaya found her way to the Palace blocked by a weave of strange energy and she howled in angry frustration as she clawed at it.   _ Let me through! _

A hand caught at the edge of her spirit, pulling her back slightly, and she turned to see HalfElven gripping her ankle.   _ Please, Vaya, forgive me, but please come back with me. _

Vaya growled, not questioning for the moment how it was that she was seeming more like a Wolfrider than a Go-Back.   _ I have earned my warrior’s death! _

There was no mistaking the sorrow on HalfElven’s face, even as her spirit began to shine more brightly.   _ I know, but you do not go alone, Warrior. _

For a moment Vaya thought that she misunderstood the strangeling maiden and then she looked down at her body and saw the small shape curled up in her midsection.  It was so small, so fragile.  _ A fawn? _

HalfElven nodded.   _ A wolfling fawn.  Please, for her sake, for your daughter, I’m begging you to come back to the world of the living, for a little while.  Please, long enough to give her the chance to know Life and all its joys. _

Vaya glanced back at the Palace, at her son, who no longer jumped and clapped, but met her gaze unflinching.   _ My son . . . _  She wanted to be with him again so much.

The boy nodded.  They were close enough that a thread of his thought could reach her.   _ I understand, Mother.  Her name is Vaska. We can watch over her together. _

With tears in her eyes Vaya turned back to HalfElven.   _ Very well. _

 

****

HalfElven reappeared abruptly with Vaya in her arms and promptly collapsed into Leetah's waiting hands.  Leetah could barely spare a thought to how anyone could still live with wounds this severe, but she could feel the life still fluttering in both of them, though barely.  The stone tunnel was silent as Leetah struggled to knit torn flesh and mend a ravaged body while ensuring that the fragile life she carried stayed strong.

HalfElven coughed and concentrated on breathing through the terrible pain running through her body.  Kahvi knelt next to her and offered a scrap of fur for the rivulet of blood running from her nose. For a moment they were silent.

"Now, Chieftess," HalfElven said, "we get to find out if you are right about keeping a soul from its rightful death."  After a moment she Sent a brief warning.  _ I think your daughter may be lost to you no matter what I do.  Vaya will never be Chieftess after you, nor her daughter. Perhaps the time has come for you to bear another fawn of your own. _

Slowly, Kahvi nodded.


	13. Book Four Part Four

The elves made their way through the labyrinthine tunnels within the mountain, edging ever closer to the chambers Two-Edge had prepared for them, prepared for this day.

He was, though, disturbed by what he saw as he watched the elves, and most especially the strangeling maiden who walked with them.  He had thought to use the body of the elf his father's people had captured to teach his mother's kin how to use the gifts he had locked away for them.

It startled him, how quickly the maiden had been rescued.

But even more he was surprised by the maiden who had done the rescuing.  He knew why she had done what she had done. He had been listening from the shadows above the elves as she had thrown herself against the solid stone, crying out for an unborn babe.

She was a puzzle, that was certain, and Two-Edge could not resist a puzzle.  Would she help or hinder his plans? Thus far she had not moved against the plan he had crafted.  She had claimed to have the power to part the mountain so that elf would not have to battle troll, but she had not used it.

She had only used her power twice.  And both times one who would have died lived.

Two-Edge decided to continue watching.  And for good measure he picked up one of the snow-elf corpses from the battlefield.  Someone would have to show the elves the way.

 

\---

The elves followed the Holt trolls through the tunnels.  HalfElven didn't speak much as they made their way. Even now, she knew, the trolls were preparing to ambush the lodge with the minimal guard of wolves and two adults with a crop of cubs and fawns.  She couldn't do anything more for them than she had already done.

Vaya walked lost in her own thoughts.  Pike edged closer to her until he managed to catch her eye, and offered a silent connection.  As painful as returning to life was after being so close to the peace of the Palace, she knew his innocence and his genuine concern.  They would not be lifemates. They were barely even lovemates. Yet within that dark home beneath her heart rested the tiny mote of life they had joined to create, and that she had given up the Palace to protect.

Vaya didn't know who her father was.  She didn't even know that it mattered to her mother who had sired the daughter who had never been quite good enough.  But, by all the High Ones united, her daughter would know her sire. She accepted the silent offer, and made a decision of her own.

She Sent to HalfElven.   _ How did you know?  How did you know about the fawn? _

HalfElven didn't turn to look at her.  She didn't need to. Guilt for pulling Vaya back to life colored her thoughts.   _ I heard her.  As the trolls pulled you away.  I heard her laughing. She is beautiful, Vaya.  Strong and valiant. _

Vaya frowned.   _ I have never heard of someone other than a mother hearing the voice of a fawn not yet born. _

HalfElven sighed.   _ So far as I know, it's never happened before.  Not even Skywise heard Cutter before Cutter was born and they're brothers in all but blood. _

Vaya blinked as HalfElven stumbled slightly and reached out to catch her before she fell.   _ You are hurt. _

_ You could say that.  I'll get better, eventually, but that depends on our getting to the Palace in time.  Your life, Voll's life, and all I have changed to save them, hangs around my neck like a weight pulling me down. _  She sighed.   _ Your daughter will be different from other fawns, coming so close to the Palace while still in the womb, so close to the magic there.  She wasn't born from Recognition, but I think, after that experience, she might as well have been. _

Vaya nodded.  Something settled deep in her heart, a decision made so firmly that there was no longer any thinking about it.  She would live and she would not regret and someday, when the time came, she would return to the Palace and to her son and leave her daughter in stronger hands than hers.

 

\---

Eventually they came to a fork in the road, and no clue which path to take.  A taunting voice hinted at false walls and HalfElven staggered forward to lean against the cold stone.  "Ekuar, check over here, I think the wall should be thinnest in this spot. We . . . we have to go through the wall."

Leetah started towards HalfElven and the maiden waved her away.  "But you're hurting." The healer was stunned.

"I'll survive.  We need . . . we need to get to the Palace.  Two-Edge's treasure is only one more step on the path."

Picknose snorted.  "Treasure is the only goal worth having."

HalfElven chuckled, a weak, tortured sound.  "Picky, Picky, Picky, in the words of a very traveled man I say to you, 'All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.  The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by the frost.' When you understand what he was saying, then you will have found a treasure worth claiming."  She struggled back onto her feet to follow the group through the door that Ekuar made in the false stone wall, watching as Ekuar closed it behind them just in time for the guards following them to miss seeing them disappear.

She knew, somehow, that she had several of the Go-Backs convinced that she was off her rocker, mad as Two-Spear as the Wolfriders would say, but obsession had never held any allure for her, nor had mindless hatred.  When she hated, it was far from mindless. Still having opportunity to quote Tolkien while walking in the world of the other great Inspiration. . . the resonance was strengthening.

The closer they came to the door to Two-Edge's treasure room the stronger she felt the resonance.  The Quest within the Quest within the Quest. One more step on the path. She began murmuring softly, letting the story carry her forward.  Rhymes and bits of prophecy from a hundred different worlds. "Three rings for the elven kings . . ." "When single shines the triple sun . . ." 

Then they found the door.  Picknose made a grab for New Moon, but Cutter threw the blade towards Skywise, who put his clever mind to good use and found the keyhole, opening the door to the treasure room, and what lay beyond it.

What they found was steel glinting gold in firelight and two bodies, one cocooned in wrapstuff and the other laying beside it on a bier, one of the Go-Backs who had fallen in the battle in the pit.

HalfElven took a deep breath.  A little truth within a larger one.  The resonance was enough to give her the strength to stand straight and breathe clear.

The truth, though, of Two-Edge's hoard was more than Picknose could take.  He had expected gold and silver from the master smith, not elf-sized toys. Two-Edge thought that the truth would make the trolls turn away from their momentary alliance with the elves, side with their blood.  How little he understood the lines of hatred that cut beyond ties of blood.

The elves didn't know what to make of the metal and HalfElven sighed and looked up at Two-Edge.  "Stay out of this, Halfblood." She looked over at Cutter. "Do you want to puzzle this out for yourself, which I know you can, or do you want me to simply tell you?"

Cutter frowned at her for half a moment.  "What is this madness?"

She shrugged.  "It's clothing, after a fashion.  You have to wear it padded, and it's not perfect because you sacrifice some ease of movement to utilize it, but it does deflect some blows in battle which would otherwise kill you."

Two-Edge laughed.  "You are a strange one, maiden elf."

"You haven't seen the half of it, Halfblood."  She helped Cutter into one of the breastplates for a convincing demonstration, following which the elves quickly suited themselves up to fight their way through Guttlecraw's forces.

Picknose's response, though, horrified Two-Edge. HalfElven laughed at the smith, and caught his attention.  "You are such a fool, sometimes, Two-Edge, just like your mother. You set this game in motion so deal with the answer you are given.  Odds or no odds, beware that the one to lose this match isn't you."

"My mother is nothing here!"  Two-Edge was adamant.

"Let it go and accept the answer you are given.  Sometimes asking either/ or gets you 'yes'."

Two-Edge shook his head and left, muttering about the elves having to fight on their own and HalfElven sighed.  "I would dearly love to throttle Winnie for what she did to him."

Voll looked at her, his face stricken.  "That was Winnowill's son?"

HalfElven nodded.  "He's still trying to decide just what he is.  There is hope for him, though, because it is madness that drives much of what he does.  Madness and brilliance, which are only two sides of the same coin. He is brilliant, you know.  Peerless in craftsmanship and ingenuity. If only she had nurtured him instead of setting him against himself."

They prepared to leave, and Voll insisted on joining them for the battle.  Of the elves, only the Gliders, Rayek, and Ekuar were unsheathed by metal. After much thought, HalfElven chose to take up a suit of her own.  After all, she didn't know when a suit of plate metal made to look like a wolf would come in handy, and she certainly intended to keep her suit once the battles were over.

She glanced back at Leetah before they left.  "Healer," she said softly, "the truth is the truth no matter the situation.  Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should. In Healing, as in a great many other things, consent is everything."  Then she turned and joined the others.

Leetah looked back at the cocooned form of One-Eye for a moment and doubt crept into her mind.  She had felt how close to death Vaya had been, though, and while Healing her had been difficult it had not been impossibly so.  She had Healed Vaya. Surely she could Heal One-Eye. She could not allow herself to doubt. Death was her enemy. Death was the only enemy.

HalfElven sighed to herself as the doors were closed behind them, locking Leetah in with One-Eye.  Healer's arrogance, but this was a lesson Leetah would have to learn through painful experience.

 

\---

And the trolls edged ever closer to the Lodge where the wolves stood guardian over children and two fragile adults.  Darktumble raised her nose to sniff the wind. Something was not right. Her friend was well, though aching deep. Something was very wrong, but what?

 

\--- --- ---

Something was very wrong in the air around the Go-Back lodge.  Darktumble could feel it, deep in her chest. Twice she caught herself just short of whining in distress, which would have brought Briersting down on her.  A scent drifted on the air, not human, not a threat, a familiar scent that Briersting immediately dismissed from his attention.

Darktumble, though, was not so dismissive.

That scent would only be a friend, but if there was a friend, why was her friend not filling her mind with greetings?  No friend would be present without greetings, and fingers-through-the-fur. Something was very wrong.

Darktumble looked around the edge of the lodge, going very slowly.

 

\---

In the lodge, Suntop felt the tingling of elfin magic being used and slowly walked towards the source, unsure of himself and afraid to speak up.  These Go-Back cubs were not very understanding of magic that Suntop himself didn't have the words to explain.

 

\---

Deep in the mountain the elfin warriors and their troll allies made their way through caverns and tunnels until they came to a great gap in the path.  As Ekuar showed why magic was useful in any situation, HalfElven took a moment to catch her breath. Another step in the path, only now, to go forward, they had to go back.

She knelt next to Ekuar as he panted from the exertion and smiled at him.  "Thank you." It was such a little thing, to offer gratitude for the proper use of gifts, but she knew that he appreciated the offering for what it was.

He smiled at her, a gentle smile.  "Why would such a pretty face seem so sad?"

She couldn't hide the glint of tears.  "Have you found peace, at last?"

Ekuar glanced at Rayek and then back at HalfElven and nodded.  The thought they shared was something almost beyond words. The trolls had damaged him terribly, but Rayek was the son he would likely never have otherwise, and he was proud of him.  Yes, he had found peace.

"Remember that peace," she murmured, "you will need it later, when this is over."

 

\---

The bridge was wide enough for the elves to cross, but only just, and they had to cross one at a time.  Precious minutes passed by.

HalfElven looked up in time to see Two-Edge knock Rayek down and her cry was completely involuntary.  Kureel started to raise his weapon and she rushed forward to stop his arm. "No, you can't kill him before he makes his choice!"

Kureel glared at her as Two-Edge taunted them with Ekuar trapped in a sack slung from his shoulder.  The game was even again, or so his twisted mind thought.

HalfElven turned her glare on Two-Edge.  "This is your second warning, Halfblood. I'm not going to give you a third chance.  Either accept that the situation is beyond your meddling or give up the question entirely.  If you ask the question, don't rail against the answer you are given!"

Two-Edge, though, vanished and HalfElven released her hold on Kureel with a muttered curse.

Kureel turned on her.  "Why did you stop me? I could have gutted that filth . . ."

HalfElven slapped him, hard.  "Don't. Call. Him. 'Filth'."  Her voice was hoarse with emotion that made everyone stare at her.  "He's a child. A lost, confused child who was hurt most terribly by the very one who should have shed her own blood rather than harm him.  I will deal with his mother, in my own way and in my own time, but you will not insult him by denying your kinship to him."

Kureel raged.  "That . . . that Troll," he made the term as insulting as he could, "is no kin of mine!"

"He's as much your kin as I am!"

Cutter had enough.  He shouted over their voices.  "Are you done?" HalfElven turned to face her chief and then flushed in embarrassment and backed away from Kureel, bowing her head slightly before Cutter.  "What did you mean, HalfElven, when you said that we couldn't kill him yet?"

She shrugged.  "He has to make his choice.  If he doesn't, and we kill him, then his soul will never find peace.  The soul doesn't die with the body, but where it goes . . . he has to choose."  She sighed. "If anyone needs peace, he does."

 

\---

Everything happened so fast.

One moment Darktumble had spotted the doeskin wrapped bundle against the wall of the lodge, the next there was a great hole in the lodge wall and there were trolls rushing towards them with weapons.

Darktumble knew that she was changing.  She had accepted that fact, even though it made Briersting uncomfortable with her.  He was just like his elf-friend in that. She looked at the trolls. She looked at the hole in the lodge.  She looked at the small bundle that smelled like her friends.

The only elves she had seen that were as small as that bundle were infants, small Wolfrider children like Suntop and Ember and the others from the place of heat and caves and sunlight.  That bundle was an elfin child.

An elf-blooded wolf knows only one instinct when a cub is threatened.

Briersting could sit in itchweed for all she cared.  She rushed forward and snatched the bundle with her teeth.  Redlance blocked the hole in the lodge wall and she didn't want to make things worse by pushing him out of the way, so she ran the long way around the lodge carrying the unprotesting bundle with her and past the pack at the entrance.  Her actions alerted the other wolves and they realized that there was troll-scent on the wind. It was enough.

As the battle raged around them, Darktumble pushed the small bundle into a hiding spot under the stairs and curled around it like a mother wolf.  The child didn't cry, didn't move, except for a twitch now and then. It worried her. She hoped that her elf-friend returned soon. Somehow, Fate would make everything better.


	14. Book Four Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was heartbreaking to write, back when I first wrote it. But it was also absolutely necessary. With as much as HalfElven was changing, as many lives as she was saving and creating, something had to serve as a counterbalance. With life there must be death and sometimes there is beauty in the grief.
> 
> There was a lot of discussion, back on the Scroll of Colors where I was originally posting this story as I wrote it, about how to handle certain sequences and the influence of other writers and fans is woven into the work at every turn. Vaska was a fan-creation. A What-if possibility who caught my imagination and so was woven into the tale. There are others, though their times have not yet shown up in the narrative.
> 
> This is also one of those moments that we discussed, heartbreaking as it is.
> 
> This is also as far as I have gotten in the story to this point. There is only one "chapter" left, so to speak, and that is entering the Palace, what transpires there, and the consequences from it. I still intend to write that chapter. I know so much of what happens further down the line that I need to. But this is a story that I've been working on since 2003 and sometimes inertia gets the better of me.

The battle below ground was over, only the bandaging of wounds was left and the slow climb back up to the Go-Backs camp to retrieve the ones left there in the supposed safety.  HalfElven walked with the group, wondering what to do with the armor she had set aside.

She had pulled it off, the metallic stuff chafed in odd places, but she knew that she would see worlds more suited to having such a suit on hand.  She had piled her suit in one place, along with the shield and the sword, and hoped that it would still be there when she got back. But this was something she had to do.

In the silence of recovery, a lone she-wolf made her way past the barrier that Rayek had breached, going on towards the goal of all elves.  HalfElven knew where she was going, knew that they would find her there, knew . . . knew that all the answers Cutter Kinseeker wanted were waiting for him inside the Palace.

But it wasn't time yet to walk through those doors.

At HalfElven's side, Two-Edge walked, shuffling his feet slightly.  The elves didn't know what to make of the half-troll, but HalfElven wasn't sure that she dared leave him behind . . . and she knew that Aroree would need Voll, no matter how the battle turned out.

They arrived back at the Lodge to find children cleaning up after having done the work of adults.  They saw trolls, dead and living, and blood-splattered Go-Back cubs, and wolves standing guard over the building.

Nightfall choked on her own tears.  "They made a hole in the wall here!"  She started to climb through with HalfElven coming up behind.  Vaya followed them into the Lodge and Rayek landed with Ekuar.

Rayek nearly spat in fury.  Ekuar was simply saddened. "Rockshaper's work!  Oh, brownskin! Guttlecraw's power holds beyond death.  He still has one of us!"

HalfElven looked over at Pike, but he was standing beside Vaya, not at the bundle she expected to see.  Something had changed. That was when she heard the whine from below the stairs. Darktumble was curled around something and she was whining with worry.

"Ekuar, I need your peace."  HalfElven choked slightly as the tears started flowing down her face.  "But not for me."

Nightfall helped Ember unearth Redlance from beneath the Troll who had buried him.  She would be the greatest aid that he could hope for. There was nothing that further assistance from anyone else could manage that Nightfall could not do alone.  From the back of the Lodge, Aroree, no longer her catatonic self, launched herself at Voll, seeking comfort from her Lord and liege. Voll was content to offer it to one who had seen too much death too quickly.

Skywise wished that he could have been the one to help Aroree.  She was still very special to him, in a way he didn't quite understand.  He just knew that he wasn't what she needed right then.

HalfElven knelt beside Darktumble and the wolf lifted her great head with another whine of worry.

_ Elf-cub not move like other elf-cubs.  Elf-cub hurt! Make elf-cub better, Friend. _

Oh, the simple belief of a wolf.  Darktumble reached forward and licked at HalfElven's face before lifting the bundle at her paws and placing it in front of her friend.  Ekuar reached out one shaking hand to reveal the sightless face of his old friend.

"Mekda!"  He breathed the name with grief in his voice.  She breathed, but she could not be said to truly live.

HalfElven nodded.  "Her mind is utterly broken, Ekuar.  She is locked still in the tunnels beneath the mountain, still a slave there."

Rayek felt his heart shudder as he looked at the twisted wreck that had once been one of the most gloriously beautiful elves that Ekuar had ever known.  Mekda had been their heart; her soul had held the three of them together. Her simple belief in her friends had given them all strength. It was why the Trolls had taken her away from them when they did.

He didn't want to admit, though, that the inevitable was so.  "We can take her to Leetah. She can be healed."

HalfElven shook her head.  "For what purpose, Rayek? She is hurt too badly for us to heal.  Her body is held together only by her will, and that is fading. She has long since been broken by torture.  She can find the healing she needs in death, with Osek."

Tears sprung up in Ekuar's eyes as he nodded.  "Yes, let her be with Osek." He almost couldn't see past the tears gathering at the corners of his sight.  He'd loved her when he was younger. They had both loved her. He still did.

HalfElven offered a hand to Ekuar.  "With your help, though, I can give you the chance to say farewell.  We can hold her mind together again long enough so that she can die knowing that she is free.  She needs the peace you have found, Ekuar, will you share it with her?"

Ekuar nodded and his expression firmed.  "Yes."

By this time a crowd, of sorts, had gathered around them.  Two-Edge watched curiously at this side of his elven-kin that he had never seen.  Voll watched, his heart breaking for what had been done to a fellow elf, a fellow firstborn of the High Ones.  The Wolfriders watched out of respect for the fading of a life and the Go-Backs watched as one who had fought the Trolls was released to the Palace and a warrior's reward.

Mekda's fate could have been theirs.

Vaya knelt on HalfElven's other side and took her other hand as Ekuar took the one which had been offered to him.  Her only explanation was a nod of acceptance. Sometimes, the Palace was a better place for a soul.

With their aid, HalfElven summoned her magic and they drifted into Mekda's broken and shattered soul, gently easing the pieces back together again.  They moved past the pain, past the torment, past the countless centuries and millennia of torture and abuse. There was a tiny spark there, a spark that flickered in fear.

_ Mekda . . . _  Ekuar reached out to her in sympathy as their souls touched for the first time in far too long.   _ The pain is ended.  You are free. Be at peace.  Osek waits for you. _

There is only Truth in Sending.

Mekda's soul flew free of her body with a cry of joy and there were tears on several faces when the three came back to themselves.

Ekuar nodded to HalfElven through the tears.  "Thank you."

She smiled at him.  "I wish it had been more."  She started to say something else and lost her words in the spasm of coughing that took hold of her, causing her whole body to shake.  Vaya held her shoulders as she struggled to breathe, blood flowing from her nose and out the sides of her eyes like tears. She could have kicked herself for pushing this far, but what else could she have done?

A final farewell was worth the pain that lanced through her body.

 

\--- --- ---

All was not well with the revived One-Eye.  He was not truly alive, but neither was he dead.  His body breathed, but his soul was gone.

Leetah was filled with overpowering shame at her failure, at the arrogance which had led her to believe that she could command another soul.  Clearbrook didn't blame her for the failure, at least she had tried to save him.

The Go-Backs gathered their fallen into a single pile, so that they could honor those who had died for the Palace.  Two-Edge watched with silent confusion at the behavior. He was a Yes, which meant that these were his traditions too, were they not?  He didn't know. All he had ever known was the struggle of Elf against Troll, the endless games and riddles and the pain before then from one who called herself his mother.

But now he had a sister.  Now he had something other than the riddles and games . . . and he didn't know what to do.  So he watched.

Rayek carried Mekda's body to the pile and laid her down with the fallen Go-Backs.  He didn't think much of the Go-Back traditions, but he wanted to show as much honor as possible to one who meant so much to Ekuar.  And Ekuar meant a great deal to him.

That HalfElven had been able to give him a chance to say goodbye . . . that HalfElven had done that for Ekuar in spite of the visible cost to herself . . . well, she would always have his respect.

The Wolfriders joined the Go-Backs in the circle, moving around and around the fallen as they sang them to their peace, sang them to the Palace.  Voll moved to take a place in the circle as Kureel stared at him. After a moment, Aroree joined him as well. Kureel simply shook his head in disbelief and then joined his Lord in what he considered insanity.

The Palace was theirs.  All they had left to do was walk through the doors and see what was waiting for them there.


	15. Book Four Part Five

Rayek woke with a groan of pain.  There was an annoying squeaking and it wouldn't shut up.  After a moment he discerned words in the interminable squeaking.  "Wake up! Wake up, High-thing!"

He blinked his eyes open to see one of the Preservers, the green one with the most annoying voice, standing right in front of his eyes.  It didn't stop talking. "Nastybad High-Digdig gone!"

It took a moment for the words to make sense but when they did he immediately knew who was gone.  "Ekuar!" He flew down to the other elves, full of rebuke and found himself face to face with HalfElven.

"He's not dead."  The words were baldly spoken and brought him up short.  "He's alive and unharmed. He will stay that way. We have other things to focus on right now."

Cutter spoke up.  "We need Ekuar. We are separated from half our fighting force."

Voll shook his head.  "It has been too long since I shaped the stone myself.  I would be little help in rebuilding the bridge."

Kureel sneered at them.  "I am no mere rockshaper."

HalfElven sneered back at him.  "No, you're just a mere bully who's spent so much time as Winnowill's lapdog that . . ."

Cutter silenced her with a look and a stern "Enough!"

Picknose shouted to them from across the gap.  "Hey, time is wasting! Get us a rope or something!"

Kahvi snarled.  The words stuck in her throat but they had to be said.  "The troll is right! The longer we delay here, the more time Guttlecraw has to ready his defenses!"

Cutter nodded.  "Then we'll have to attack first, and the trolls will follow . . ."

" . . . As soon as I can help them get across the broken bridge."  Rayek volunteered. "Go! We'll be there to back you up as quickly as possible!"

Voll nodded slowly.  "I would stay to aid you, but I do not know how much aid I would be."  Kureel started to say something but Voll looked at him and the Glider fell silent before his Lord.  "You have made your position clear. Go with the warriors and aid them in the attack. Your skills as one of my Chosen Eight should be a good match for the task."

Kureel bowed and followed the rest of the warriors away as the trolls began cutting away a slab of rock to use as a makeshift bridge.

Rayek watched the warriors walk away, his heart full of resentment and a feeling so alien that he almost mistook it for the anger he channeled it into.  He was afraid. He was afraid for Ekuar, afraid that the ancient elf who was more his father than the one who sired him would be harmed or worse while he was unable to prevent it because he was shackled with these frustrating Trolls.

 

\---

Two-Edge took his place above the soon-to-be battleground and awaited the conflict, and the resolution of his own identity.  All his hard work had been to bring these two forces to this place and this time and at long last a decision would be made.

 

\---

HalfElven wondered if the hammering of her heart was as loud against her breastplate as it was in her ears as they prepared for the coming battle.  It wasn't as though this was her first war, or the first time she would willfully shed blood. She wasn't like her Ne-sama, so empathic that the taking of a life caused a crippling aftereffect.  Ne-sama had changed herself to become a warrior but that change had not come without cost.

HalfElven actually remembered the first time Ne-sama had killed.  She was only a very small child at the time, barely aware of herself when Ne-sama had collapsed into Dreamhaven with blood on her hands and her mind shattering more with every moment.  HalfElven had crawled into her lap and offered a child's comfort as the adults around them helped Ne-sama rebuild herself.

She would not suffer that same damage, that same collapse.

She wasn't even certain why she thought about Ne-sama at that particular time, except that Nightfall's amber eyes reminded her of golden ones, and maybe she missed the sister she had adopted.  Still, as difficult a time as she was having with some of the recalcitrant personalities around her, and the demands of the story-that-must-be, she was glad that she was standing in this time and place and not the much more difficult Goldeneyes Dreamsail.

And maybe, just maybe, she wished that she could curl up in her older sister's lap and have her wash away the pain with her healing hands.

HalfElven took a deep breath as the Wolfriders raised their voices in a chilling howl meant for their enemies' ears.  It was time. She lifted her face and joined in.

 

\--- --- ---

The trolls weren't expecting the elves to show up the way that they did.  Two-Edge watched from above, tears of glee streaming down his face as he watched troll and elf war against each other.  HalfElven was sickened by the carnage, but this battle, and the stupid, needless bloodshed, was woven too strongly into the very pattern that was the World of Two Moons.  It was all she could do to stand back to back with Vaya, keeping the Go-Back and her unborn wolfling fawn whole to battle's end.

For her part, Vaya ached deep in her soul for the peace and completion that the Palace offered.  She was a Go-Back. She was her mother's daughter. She made her choice and she would stand by it for the good of the tribe.  She was not, however, her mother and war . . . had long since lost its allure. She swore, swore on her own blood that flowed from cuts and scrapes her armor could not block, that her daughter would live to know another path.

Kureel was relentless as he fought alongside the Go-Backs and the Wolfriders.  He wanted to condemn them all as worthless mongrels, but as he watched them fight, and saw them bleed and die, some quiet part of his soul asked if their bravery wasn't a more worthy offering to the Firstcomers than his anger.

HalfElven saw Skywise fall, saw him reach out to Cutter.  She could feel his fear, his soul-deep fear of being alone.  She cut down another troll as she worked to keep Vaya alive. When Nightfall helped Skywise back to his feet, HalfElven reached out to him with her mind in Sending.   _ We are all of us alone in our fears. Do you think any of us could take one step for him across that Bridge? _

_ But I need him . . . _  Skywise could feel the beginnings of resentment in his heart.

HalfElven didn't have patience for self-pity.   _ And I need my sister.  That doesn't mean she's going to appear out of nowhere and heal all our hurts with a great ball of light.  You can do this. I can do this. _  Then she was gone as another troll made a stab towards Vaya.

 

\---

In the Lodge, Redlance and the wolves fought the trollish party desperately.  Aroree saw the blood and she saw the cubs trying to help the gentle Wolfrider and her soul roared in anger.  One-Eye's death had scarred her, had terrified her as she saw death up close and personal for the first time in her long life.  But these were children, mere children such as she had not imagined could still be. She could not let these children die.

Instinct took over for her and she fought back against the trolls beside Redlance who, for the first time, turned his magic towards deadly purposes.

 

\---

Two-Edge realized that his feet had been sealed in rock just as Rayek and Voll arrived with the trollish reinforcements.  The battle turned quickly at that point.

Rayek struggled to lift the huge metal gate that was all that blocked them from the Palace and his inching success terrified the Troll King.  Guttlecraw shouted to his warriors and HalfElven barely managed to catch a troll sword with her own before it could impale Lord Voll.

"Careful, Old Bird!" she shouted above the din.  "I've got too much invested in you to let you die now."

Voll looked at the carnage and merely nodded his head.  There was so much blood, so many fallen, too many of them were elves.

At that point the slaughter was over quickly.  Kahvi took Guttlecraw's head, a quick death that was more than he deserved, out of respect for Cutter.  Vaya watched the warriors lift the Troll King's head in celebration and all she could think was that she was sick of it all.

 

\---

Once the fighting was done the Wolfriders eagerly shed their armor as they ran to retrieve Leetah.  HalfElven sighed as she knew what they would find, knew that Leetah had tried to do something she should not have done.

She nodded to Vaya, who nodded back.  It was an acknowledgement of the struggle, an unspoken acceptance of promises too dear for voice.  Then HalfElven walked over to Voll and quietly touched him on the arm. "Could you . . . could you help me with something?"

Voll looked at her and his eyes widened.  "You are bleeding."

HalfElven put a hand to her nose and pulled it back to see the stain on her fingertips.  "So I am."

He offered a scrap of cloth and she wiped at the rivulet for a moment.  "What do you need of me, HalfElven?"

She sighed, exhaustion in her breath.  "I need . . ." she choked briefly, coughed several times and turned to spit a glob of blood on the floor, "I need to get to Two-Edge and I cannot fly, not at the moment."

"Would you rather see the healer?" he asked.

She shook her head.  "Leetah has enough problems and there's nothing she can do for me anyway.  I have to get to the Palace, but that will happen soon enough. Two-Edge cannot wait."

Voll nodded and offered his hand.

 

\---

Two-Edge knelt on the ledge where he was still sealed, stunned by the turn of events.  "I – lost! I – I lost the game!" he murmured, unaware that there were others with him.  "Troll aided Elf, against Troll! Nothing is decided. How shall I know . . . what I am?"

There was such heartrbreak, such loss and confusion in his voice, that for a moment Voll pitied him.

HalfElven reached out to take one of his hands in both of hers.  The contact caused Two-Edge to turn to look at her in confusion. "I warned you, Master Smith, and you did not listen."  She spread her fingers out as she pressed her hand against his, palm to palm, showing him her hands. "The game is played.  You have your answer."

"But . . . Troll or Elf?"

She sighed, a touch of her old impishness in her eyes.  "Yes, Master Smith, your answer is Yes. Elf or Other, my answer is Yes, too."

He looked up into her eyes for a moment.  "We are . . . the same?"

HalfElven smiled.  "Close enough." She sighed, then, and sagged in weariness.  Two-Edge caught her before Voll could, unaware of his own actions.  "You are brilliant, Master Smith, an honor and an asset. I wanted . . . I wanted to h- . . ."  She started coughing again, the hacking, racking, tearing coughs seeming to make her body convulse for a moment.  Finally she was able to take a deep breath and turned her head to spit another gobbet of blood. "I wanted to help you, somehow.  But I am weakened and I cannot give you the healing you need."

Two-Edge blinked silently for a moment.  He took HalfElven's hands in his own again, turning them over and examining them carefully.  "You are a Yes," he murmured, "I am a Yes." He looked up and gingerly touched the white in her hair and then pulled a lock of his own white hair forward to look at it.  "We are . . . the same?" He paused again, making up his mind. "The same." He repeated it firmly. "Yes." He met her eyes. "You would be my sister?"

She smiled.  "Yes, I will be your sister."

He touched the white lock again and smiled back, a genuinely happy expression.  "I will be your brother."

She looked at Voll.  "Can you free his feet?  I need to be with the others when they return to the Lodge and I cannot leave him alone, not now."

Voll nodded.  No matter the circumstances, this was still the child of the woman he loved.  "I believe I can shape the stone enough for this."


End file.
